This event was, in fact, nothing more than the mislaying of a match-box. Yet, but for this trifling accident, not only would those marvellous experiences never have befallen me, but the entire course of my life--indeed, my very personality--would have been quite different. It happened thus: On a windy September evening I was standing on the quay of the inner basin of Ramsgate harbour, filling my pipe with the shavings that I cut from a cake of “hard.” I had just descended the worn steps of Jacob’s Ladder, and still lingered in its shelter until my pipe should be fairly alight, and when I had finished stuffing the bowl with the fresh-rubbed, clammy shavings, I thrust my hand into the pocket of my monkey jacket for the matches. But the box was not there. I hastily searched other pockets, but, as I expected, without success; for I am methodical in small things, and that box had its abode in that particular pocket. I was somewhat vexed at the loss, although the thing was of no intrinsic value, for it was only a copper case, into which an ordinary match-box slipped; but it had been made for me by a friendly shipwright from the sheathing of an old corvette (a portrait of which was etched on the copper), and I set some store by it. As I walked on, sucking the unlit pipe, I tried to recall the last occasion on which I had used it; and suddenly I remembered having passed it to a collier skipper some evenings ago, in the parlour of the “Hovelling Boat” Inn; so thither I immediately turned my steps. It must not be supposed that I was, in those days, a frequenter of taverns, for this was far from being the case. But to a young man, deeply in love with the sea, the “Hovelling Boat” had special attractions. It was situated in a little narrow street full of crinkled gables and odd bay windows, and blocked at its end by a medley of masts and spars; a street in which anchors and cables sprawled on the pavements, side-lights glared from ship-chandlers’ windows, and suits of oilskins dangled from projecting poles, as if some fisher of men were lurking inside and had just had a “bite.” The inn itself had a coloured lamp, surmounted by a gilded lugger in full sail, and its cosy parlour abounded in all sorts of sea-monsters--piratical-looking fishermen from Gravelines in knitted caps and stockings and mosaic breeches, whose principal patches hinted at sedentary habits; jolly Dutchmen from square-bowed schuyts; pale Scandinavians with colourless hair and faded blue eyes; smacksmen, colliers, and coasters from the “west country”: all foregathered here to smoke and drink and gossip in the lurid dialect of the salt sea. I had pushed open the door and was making for the parlour, when the landlady spied me and held up her hand. “I think I’ve got something of yours, Muster Englefield,” she said, reaching up to a shelf. “Doesn’t this match-box belong to you? I found it in the parlour last Tuesday.”