Now it was all over. The weird maelstrom of whirling days and nights that had added unreality to what was already dreamlike and impossible, had subsided. We were going down the harbor under full sail. Leaving the others still at breakfast, I had come out here alone to find myself. I could not grasp it at all. The little farm boy who in the night had wakened and cried for the sea, going back to it, at last. The youth who had carried into manhood the fancy of a fair unknown land, and of one day sailing away to the South to find it, entering suddenly into an Aladdin-like realization of his dreams. It seemed to me that every vessel in the harbor ought to be decorated and firing salutes—that every soul of the vast city ought to be waving us adieu. To be sure, we hadn’t told anybody. Gale was rather down on the papers, and we had left so suddenly that they had little chance to find out what we were doing. One of them—that of the millionaire editor—got an inkling of it in some way, and in its Sunday Magazine of two days before had filled a page with strange vagaries purporting to be our plans, and disturbing pictures of the lands and people we expected to discover. But as no one ever believes anything printed in a Sunday newspaper, even when backed up by sworn statements, these things appeared to have passed unnoticed. There had been one exception, however; my scientist of the snark and flipper, who had appeared on Monday morning to enter his promised protest. He came at a busy time. About a hundred teams were backing into each other on the dock, whence arose a medley of unjoyous execration, and a line of men were waiting at Gale’s little table for checks. It was this auspicious moment that my scientist selected for his mission. Captain Biffer, to whom he first appealed, acknowledged him with an observation which no magazine would print, and waved him toward Gale. “There’s the man _you_ want,” he snorted, “that man over there giving his money away.” Chauncey Gale was at that moment engaged in constructing a check that ran well into four figures. He paused, however, with his hand on the way to the ink-bottle and listened for a moment with proper respect. Then he said, quite serenely: “I wonder if you couldn’t conveniently go to hell for about three years. Perhaps by then I’ll have time to listen to you. You notice we’re pretty busy, this morning.” I smiled now, recalling how the human seal had flopped backwards over a box of cod-fish and narrowly missed pitching overboard in his anxiety to get ashore. There had been no further interference, and no offered encouragement. We were leaving it all behind, now; the narrow, busy, indifferent world. There were no salutes, and if there were any flags, or waving, I did not see them. Nobody had been down to see us off, and impudent tugs steamed by and splashed water at us, just as if we were going out for a day’s sail, and would be back in time for the roof gardens.