At sight of the scrubbed floors, the polished brasswork, the barometer on the wall, and the simple furnishings so like the cabin of a ship, his blue eyes showed a flicker of interest and he paused and absently shoved an inkstand back from the shelf of a desk lest it slide off. The trick was so significant of his calling that O’Shea needed no more proof. A tin box filled with matches caught his glance and he instantly made for them. His demeanor was furtive and cunning. He had become a different man in a twinkling. Johnny Kent jumped for him and O’Shea was at his elbow ready for a tussle. But he permitted the matches to be taken from him without resistance, and forgot all about them in fingering the spliced hammock ropes on the porch. A gesture from O’Shea and he returned to the kitchen and took the chair assigned him for breakfast. The prudent engineer kept an eye on the knife and fork which the stranger used with the manners rather of the cabin than the forecastle. O’Shea studied the rugged, honest features of this red-headed mystery and earnestly expounded various theories that wandered into blind alleys and led nowhere at all. The only conjecture which seemed to hang together was that, in some way or another, the man’s propensity for setting fires harked back to the time and scene of the terrible blow over the head which had benumbed his memory and jarred his wits. Before this disaster overtook him he must have been a fellow ready and courageous, able to hold his own in the rough-and-tumble world. “What shall we call him? It’ll be handy to give him some kind of a name,” suggested Johnny Kent. “He reminds me of Big Bill Maguire, that was mate of the _Sea Bird_ bark, and fell through a hatch and broke his neck when he came aboard drunk at Valparaiso. He was a rare seaman when sober.” “Let’s call him Bill Maguire, then, Cap’n Mike. He likes us and I guess he intends to sign on with us and hang around.” “Why don’t you try setting him to work, Johnny? He would make a jewel of a hired man.” “Yes. On a fire-proof farm that was insured for all the underwriters would stand for,” dubiously returned the engineer. “I can’t watch him every minute.” Captain Michael O’Shea banged the table with his fist and decisively exclaimed: “’Tis in my mind to visit you a day or two longer, Johnny. Curiosity is fair consuming me. I can see the ugly, wicked marks on this poor beggar’s back whenever I shut me eyes. It haunts me like a nightmare that is too monstrous to talk about.” “I’d give a thousand dollars to fathom it,” roared Johnny Kent. “And Bill Maguire just sits across the table and grins like a wooden figger-head.” “I suppose ye have no Chinamen in your village,” ventured O’Shea. “Nary a Chink. I’ll bet the children never saw one.”