He was small and wrinkled and very wise. The more I saw and heard of him, the more I marveled that he had not attracted my attention before; but up to this point in the voyage it was only by night that he had appeared different from other men, and I thought of him only as a prowler in the dark. In some ways he was like a cat. By day he would sit in corners in the sun when opportunity offered, or lurk around the galley, shirking so brazenly, that the men were amused rather than angry. Even at work he was as slow and drowsy as an old cat, half opening his sleepy eyes when the officers called him to account, and receiving an occasional kick or cuff with the same mild surprise that a favorite cat might show. But once darkness had fallen, Blodgett was a different man. He became nervously wakeful. His eyes distended and his face lighted with strange animation. He walked hither and yon. He fairly arched his neck. And sometimes, when some ordinary incident struck his peculiar humor, he would throw back his head, open his great mouth, and utter a screech of wild laughter for all the world like the yowl of a tom-cat. On that particular night he walked the forecastle, keeping close to the bulwarks, till the rest of us assembled by the rigging and watched him with a kind of fascination. After a time he saw us gathered there and came over to where we were. His eyes were large and his wrinkled features twitched with eagerness. He seemed very old; he had traveled to the farthest lands. "Men," he cried in his thin, windy voice, "yonder's the moon." The moon indeed was there. There was no reason to gainsay him. He stood with it over his left shoulder and extended his arms before him, one pointing somewhat to the right, the other to the left. "The right hand is the right way," he cried, "but the left we'll never leave." We stared at the man and wondered if he were mad. "No," he said, smiling at our puzzled glances, "we'll never leave the left." "Belay that talk," said one of the men sharply. "Ye'll have to steer a clearer course than that if you want us to follow you." Blodgett smiled. "The course is clear," he replied. "Yonder"--he waved his right hand--"is Singapore and the Chinese Sea and Whampoa. It's the right course. Our orders is for that course. Our cargo is for that course. It's the course that will make money for the owners. It's the right--you understand?--my right hand and the right course according to orders. But yonder"--this time he waved his left hand--"is the course that won't be left. And yet it's the left you know--my left hand." He explained his feeble little joke with an air of pride. "Why won't it be left?" the gruff seaman demanded.