The dirty dawn of a wet October day stole on the young man's eyes as he was attempting a doze on the patched counterpane with his sea-going gear around him. The arrival of an honest Wednesday morning, chill and dismal as it was, dispelled with a magic that seemed ironical any lingering trace he might have of his night fear of Grandma. Was he not a sailor who six long years had sailed the seas? Had he not seen, done and suffered things which held him forever from any human thrall? But Henry Harper knew better than to ask Grandma what she had got for breakfast. He chose instead to sling his hook. Gathering his truck back into its bundle, and cramming the magic cap over his eyes, he pulled the chest of drawers away from the bedroom door. Then as soon as there was light enough to see the way he crept down the creaking stairs, unlocked, unbolted and unchained the door below, and slipped out into Wednesday morning. Wednesday morning received him with a chill spatter of rain. He stood a minute on the cobbles of the squalid yard in front of Grandma's abode--wondering where he was, what he should do, which turn he should take. As a fact, there was only one turn he could take, and that lay straight ahead across the yard, through a short arched passageway leading to a maze of courts and alleys which led heaven knew where. He proceeded to find out. Bundle under arm, fur cap over eyes, a roll in his gait, the Sailor emerged at last upon a main street, at present only half awake. But it contained a thing of vast importance: a policeman. The Law in its majesty looked at the Sailor. The Sailor in his simplicity looked at the majesty of the Law. There was a time, six long, long years ago, when he would not have ventured such a liberty with the most august of human institutions. But he was through that phase of his career. By comparison with all the stripes that had since been laid upon him even the police were gentle and humane. There was not a soul in sight except this solemn London bobby, who stood four square in the Sailor's path. "Mornin', mister." The Sailor lifted his cap, partly from a sense of fraternity, partly from a proud feeling of being no longer afraid to do so. The bobby surveyed the strange nondescript that had been washed up by the tide of Wapping. He looked gravely at the bundle and at the fur cap, and then decided in quite an impersonal way not to return their owner's salutation. The Sailor was not hurt by the aloofness of the Law. He had not expected anything else. After all, the police were the police. He knew that a gulf of several hemispheres was fixed between a real three-stripe rozzer of the Metropolitan Force and a thing it had pleased fate to call by the name of Henry Harper.