Then Saumerez laughed stupidly, and repeated the laugh at intervals until the moon flashed in his eyes from the open razor still between his fingers. After that he stood as still as of old when worshipping his picture. But at length he changed the razor to the hand which held the candle-stick, for a moment, while he poised a shilling on his thumb-nail. "Heads for hell!" he called aloud. The coin spun upward into the skylight, and came spinning down through the moonbeams; it rang on the floor and rolled away. On his knees Saumerez hunted for it, the open razor grasped once more in his right hand, the candle dripping from his left; while he repeated, as though their aptness pleased him, the words "sudden death." But the shilling was not to be discovered instantly; it had rolled among the débris of the fallen table; and when found it was so coated with tobacco-ash that which side was uppermost it was impossible to tell. Saumerez would not touch the tossed coin; but he craned his neck downward, blew away the ashes, and grinned again as he tightened his grip. THE STAR OF THE _GRASMERE_ My acquaintance with Jim Clunie began and ended on the high seas. It began when the good ship _Grasmere_, of the well-known Mere line of Liverpool clippers, was nine days out from that port, bound for Melbourne with a hardware cargo and some sixty passengers. There were but seven of us, however, in the saloon, and Clunie was not of this number. He was a steerage passenger. When, therefore, on the tenth day out I had occasion to seek the open air in the middle of dinner, I was not a little surprised to find Clunie practically in possession of the poop. As a steerage passenger he had no business to be there at all, much less with the revolver which I instantly noticed in his right hand. "It's all right, my lord," he shouted to me hesitating on the top of the ladder. "I'm only taking a pot at the sea-gulls." And he discharged his weapon over the rail, needless to say without effect, for we were close-hauled to a hard head wind, and pitching violently. I looked at the man at the wheel, and the man at the wheel nodded to me. "The third mate'll be back in a minute, sir. He's only gone for'ard to speak to Chips." "A minute's all I want," cried Clunie, firing twice in quick succession. "What does your lordship say? Too jolly sick to say anything, eh?"