"Win by much?" asked the Sailor, his heart suddenly beginning to beat under his seaman's jersey. "Three two," said Ginger. "At Brum?" "No, at Sheffle, in foggy weather, on a holdin' turf." The Sailor's eyes glowed. And then with his chin in his hands he gazed deep into the fire. "I once seen the Villa," he said in a dreaming voice. It was the proudest memory of his life. Ginger withdrew his mind from a consideration of the Police Report and the latest performances of the Government. "At the Palace?" Ginger's tone was deep as becomes one entering upon an epic subject. "No," said the Sailor, the doors of memory unlocked. "At Blackhampton. The Villa come to play the Rovers. My! they could play a bit. Won the Cup that year. Me and young Arris climbed a tree overlookin' the ground. Young Arris got pinched by a rozzer." Ginger was not impressed by the reminiscence. It seemed a pity that a chap who had been six years before the mast, and not a bad sort of fellow, should give himself away like that. From the style and manner of the anecdote it was clear to this exact thinker that the Sailor had begun pretty low down in the scale. In the pause which followed the Sailor shivered like a warhorse who hears the battle from afar. The memories of his youth were surging upon him. In the meantime, Ginger, who appeared to be frowning over the Government and the Police news, was watching the Sailor's eyes very intently. He was watching those strange eyes with a cool detachment. "Enery," said Ginger, choosing his words carefully, "if I was you, do you know what I'd do?" Enery didn't. "I'd very seriously be considerin' how I could earn my four quid a week." The Sailor smiled sadly. He knew from cold experience that such a remark was sheer after-supper romance. Still it must be very nice to own a mind like Ginger's, which could weave such fantasy about the facts of life. "If I was you," proceeded Ginger, "I wouldn't sleep in my bed until I was earnin' my four quid a week, winter _and_ summer." The Sailor who knew the price exacted in blood and tears to earn a pound a month could only smile. "I'm goin' out for it meself," said Ginger. "And I'm not so tall as you. And I haven't your make and shape, I haven't your turn o' the leg, I haven't your arms an' wrisses." Ginger might have been speaking Dutch for all that the Sailor could follow the emanations of his remarkable intellect. "See here,"--an unnecessary adjuration since the Sailor was looking in solemn wonder with both eyes---"my pal Dinkie Dawson has just been engaged for three years by the Blackhampton Rovers at four thick uns a week. Fact." The Sailor didn't doubt it. The very genius of scepticism would have respected such an announcement.