"I live with my married sister, Mrs. Pentle, and goin' home these cold winter nights I sit down to supper, and after supper I slip into my slipshods, an' I get out my pipe, an' I spread my feet out before a nice, hot fire, in a rockin'-chair, an' the sister's six children they climb up all over me and we have one good time together. Some nights I take one or two of the oldest of 'em to the movies." "You like children, then, captain?" "The man, Mrs. Pentle, that ain't got children is bein' cheated out o' something," said Peter. "An' sittin' there after the children are put to bed, I say to myself: 'Well, Peter Crudden, you're cert'nly one lucky dog. Here's you into your warm, dry bed every night, an' work that there's about enough of to exercise you, an' no matter how the weather is--no matter about sea and wind so rough you can't fish--there's your pay-envelope every week with the same old reg'lar amount in it.'" "I'm glad you like it here, captain, and--I'm partners with Mr. Duncan in a new vessel to be named after me." "I hope," said Peter earnestly, "that she won't shame her name--that she'll be fast an' weatherly--and always find her way back home." "I hope so, captain. And now--if there is anything about your work you do not like, let me know." There was a tramping of girls hurrying through the passageway. Two or three were gazing curiously in from the doorway. "Closing-up time, is it?" Mrs. Pentle had suddenly become nervous. "Good-by." She passed out with Henston. Old Flaxley looked kindly at Peter. "No airs to her, Peter; all men look alike to her," said old Flaxley. "She's all right," said Peter. "But as for hard work--Lord!" And he was chuckling over that all the while he was washing up and still smiling at the thought of it when he overhauled a girl in the passageway on his way out. He said good evening politely and was hurrying by when the figure said: "Good evening, captain." It was something in the voice that held him. He had another look--it wasn't very light in the passageway. Well, if it wasn't the girl who had sold him the lunch-box! Peter walked to the corner with her; when her car came along, it happened to be his car. She lived not very far from Peter's sister. He walked to her door with her. Her name was Sarah Hern. After work next day Peter waited at the door of the shipping-room. When she came out of the girls' room he fell into step with her and they rode home together. Sarah invited him in. Peter stepped in for a minute and met Sarah's mother. He stayed to supper. There must have been eight or nine Hern boys and girls, some grown up, with a widowed mother. And they all but the mother sat down together; and the girls kept bouncing up and down, hopping back and forth between table and kitchen when things didn't come fast enough.