"I have seen none finer," answered Charnock, "except on a racing-yacht or a destroyer." "She's almost familiar to me," speculated the Major. "She reminds me of some boats I saw once at the West Indies," returned Charnock, "built for the fruit-trade, and so built for speed. Only they were schooners--from Salcombe, I believe. The Salcombe clippers they were called." "Indeed!" said the Major, with a sharp interest, and he leaned forward over the rail. "Now I wonder what her name is." Charnock held a pair of binoculars in his hand. He gave them to the Major. Wilbraham raised them to his eyes while the P. and O. closed upon the sailing-boat. The brigantine slid down the slope of a wave and hoisted her stern. "The 'Tarifa,'" said the Major, and he shut up the binoculars. "What is her tonnage, do you think?" "About three hundred, I should say." "My notion precisely. Would it be of any advantage to alter her rig, supposing that she was one of the Salcombe schooners?" "I should hardly think so," replied Charnock. "I rather understood that the schooners were noted boats." "Ah, that's interesting," said Wilbraham, and he returned the binoculars. The steamer was now abreast of the brigantine, and in a little it drew ahead. "By the way, Charnock, I shall hope to see more of you," resumed Major Wilbraham. "I haven't given you a card, have I?" He produced a well-worn card-case. "It's very kind of you," said Charnock, as he twirled the card between his forefinger and his thumb. "Don't you," he added, "find cards rather a heavy item in your expenses?" Major Wilbraham laughed noisily. "I take you, dear friend," he exclaimed, "I take you. But a friend in this world, sir, is a golden thread in a very dusty cobweb." "But the friendship is rather a one-sided arrangement," rejoined Charnock. "For instance, the cards you give, Major Wilbraham, bear no address, the cards you receive, do." And while showing the card to his companion, he inadvertently dropped it into the sea. Major Wilbraham blamed the negligence of a rascally printer, and made his way to the smoking-room. The P. and O. boat touched at Plymouth the next morning, and landed both Major Wilbraham and Charnock. The latter remained in Plymouth for two days, and on the morning of the third day hired a hansom cab, and so met with the last of those incidents which were to link him in such close, strange ties with the fortunes of men and women who even in name were then utterly unknown to him.