Mr. Wriford pushed the wheeled-chair and the oldest sea-captain living about the grounds all that afternoon, and the task became thereafter a part of his daily occupation. It was not a duty. It merely became a habit. The face of the oldest sea-captain living would light up enormously when he saw Mr. Wriford approaching, and he would thank him affectionately when each voyage in the wheeled-chair was done, but Mr. Wriford was never actively conscious of finding pleasure in the old man's gratitude. He never conversed with him during their outings--and had no need to converse. The oldest sea-captain living did all the talking, chattering garrulously and with the wandering of a fading old mind of his ships, his voyages, and his adventures, and ecstatically happy so to chatter without response. He was born in Ipswich, he told Mr. Wriford, and he was married in Ipswich and had had a rare little house in Ipswich and had buried his wife in Ipswich. Whenever, in his chattering, he was not at sea he was at Ipswich, and the reiteration of the word gradually wormed a place into Mr. Wriford's mind, creeping in by persistent thrusts and digs through the web and mist of his own thoughts which, as he revolved them, enveloped him numbed, listless, detached from the oldest sea-captain living and his chattering as from all else that surrounded him in the workhouse. II Yet an event proved that not only the name Ipswich but some feeling for this its famous son, some sense of happiness in the hours devoted to the wheeled-chair, also had found place in his mind. A birthday of the oldest sea-captain living brought the event. In celebration of the occasion the oldest sea-captain living was permitted to give a little tea-party in the convalescent ward. Some dainties were provided and with them just the tiniest little drop of something in the oldest sea-captain's tea. Enormously exhilarated, the oldest sea-captain living obtained of the Matron permission to send a special request to Mr. Wriford to attend the festivities, and enormously exhilarated he showed himself when Mr. Wriford came. Flushed and excited he sat at the head of the table in full possession once more of the ear of his companions and making up for previous isolation by chattering tremendously of his exploits. Roused to immense heights by his sudden popularity and by virtue of the little drop of something in his tea, he gave at intervals, to the great delight of the assembly, an example of how he used to hail the maintop in foul weather when master of his own ship. With almost equal force of lungs he hailed Mr. Wriford when Mr. Wriford appeared. "Hallo, Matey!" hailed the oldest sea-captain living. "Ahoy, Matey! Ahoy!"