THE water front of San Francisco is unique. The long wharves, vibrating to the thunder of trade, show ships from all corners of the world; ships from China and the Islands, from Japan, from Africa, from India; tall Cape Horners, held to the wharves with wire mooring-lines, lie cleaning their bilges or lining their holds for grain cargoes with ships for Durban, ships for Cork, steamers for Seattle and Northern ports. Beyond lies the bay, blue or wind-beaten gray, busy with a shipping life of its own, with Oakland, six miles across the water, for a sister port. Beyond the bay are the hills that saw the desolation before the first Spaniards broke the ground or the keel of the first sandalwood trader rode the waters of the Golden Gate.

Here on the wharves to-day, it takes little imagination to see the ships that have vanished and the traders that are gone—the South Sea whaleman, with stump top gallant masts and boats slung out on wooden davits, the Island schooner of the old days when the Leonora was a living ship and before copra was handled by companies.

George and his companion struck the water front, where a big “turret boat” of the Clan line was moored, the Lascars huddled round her foc’sle engaged in preparing fish for a curry.

“That’s the canal,” said Hank. “She’s come through from ’Urope with a cargo and now she’s loading up for Bombay or somewhere. Looks as if she’d been built by some one that’d gone bughouse, don’t she? She’s built like that to save dues going through the Suez Canal. Wonder what the shipping companies will be up to in the way of swindling the Panama. I tell you, Bud, there’s not a hair’s difference between humans and rats for tricks and smart ways.”

They passed along, reaching an old decayed bit of wharf that had somehow withstood change and reconstruction. It is now little more than a landing stage, but in the old days, under the name of Rafferty’s wharf, it had a broad front. Whalers used to come alongside to discharge and clean up and here Bones’ Old Sailors’ Lodging House, half tavern, used to take unfortunates in and do for them. There was a trap door from Bones’ back parlour to the water below, where boats could come in between the piles and ship off sailor men blind with dope. Then it became respectable and changed its name to Sullivan’s.

Alongside this stage lay the Wear Jack, a sixty ton schooner, fifty feet long. The watchman happened to be on deck, a thin man greatly gone to decay, dressed in a brown sweater and wearing an old fur cap. He was seated on the coaming of the skylight, smoking.

“Hullo,” said Hank. “That you, Jake?”

The fellow below cocked an eye up and evidently recognised the other, but he didn’t move.

“I’m coming aboard to overhaul her,” said Hank. “I’ve just seen Mr. Tyrebuck, here’s his card.”

“Well, I’m not preventin’ you,” said Jake.

Hank came down the ladder followed by George.

The deck of the Wear Jack ran flush fore and aft. Neglect sat there with dirt and tobacco juice. Old ends of rope lay about and spars and main blocks that had seen a better day, and bits of newspaper and a bucket with potato peelings in it.

Forward, with her keel to the sky, lay an old broken dinghy that might have come out of the ark, and a flannel jumper aired itself on the port rail. No wonder that prospective buyers sniffed and went off.

The soft job man on the cabin skylight looked at the newcomers.

“Where’s your cyard?” said he.

Hank presented the card. “Now then,” said Hank, “if you’re not stuck to that skylight with cobbler’s wax, hoist yourself and get busy. I’m going right all over her, cabin first. Come along.”

He led the way down.

The saloon of the Wear Jack had plenty of head room, six feet four or so; there were bunks on either side and a cabin aft shut off by a bird’s-eye maple door. The upholstering was in crimson, crimson plush, and the table was of mahogany. Everything was of the best and little the worse for wear, but over everything was the gloom of the murdered sunlight, filtering in through the filthy skylight and the grimy portholes. Hank opened the door of the after cabin.

“Pretty musty, ain’t it?” said Jake. “I kyan’t get it right, nohow. You could grow mushrooms on that bunk with the damp, though where it comes from, search me. Ain’t sea damp, it’s damp that seems to have got in the wood. The wood sweats when the weather’s a bit warm. Smells like an old cheese.”

“Well, I ain’t buying a scent factory,” said Hank.

“Oh, buyin’ her, are you?” said Jake, “buyin’ her.” He said nothing more, but followed as Hank led the way out of the saloon. They inspected the lavatory and bath, the galley, and then they came to the auxiliary engine, for the Wear Jack boasted an auxiliary engine, a neat little Kelvin paraffin engine in a canvas jacket.

“Does the engine run?” asked Hank of the soft job man.

“Run,” said Jake. “Well the last time I heard of it runnin’, it run off its bed plates. That’s the yarn I got from one of the chaps that were in her on her last cruise—but maybe it’s a lie.”

“Now look here,” said Hank, “you deal straight with me and I’ll deal straight with you to the tune of five dollars. I don’t want to buy old junk. Is there anything wrong with this ship?” He nudged George as he spoke.

“Well,” said Jake, “I oughtn’t to be talking, I s’pose, I’m put here to show her to parties, but I haven’t swore to say nothing; anything wrong with her? Why she’s all wrong, the sticks are carrots and the plankin’s mush, run that there injin and you’ll shake her to pieces, get her in a beam sea and she’ll strain her heart open. But mind you she’s fast, her lines are good, but they’re just lines held together by a lick of paint.”

Hank was down on his knees testing the planking to which the bed plates were fixed with his knife.

Then he rose up and led the way on deck. They examined the foc’sle. It had accommodations for six.

Coming out of the foc’sle, Hank began a cruise of his own, poking about here and there. Then he dived down below again.

When he came on deck he handed Jake the five dollars for his information and they left the ship.

He took George’s arm as they went along the wharf.

“Remember,” said he, “what I told you to-day about the Wear Jack being an optical delusion.”

“Yes, and you seem to have been pretty right.”

“Oh, was I? Well, way back in my head I was thinking different, and I only know that now. I can’t explain my head piece, except by saying it goes by instinct. When I saw Jake the other day, he must have climbed right down into my mind and sat there ever since, explaining things without my knowing, otherwise I’m doubtful if I’d have been so keen on Tyrebuck letting me have the old Jack. Not that I mind risking my life, but there it is, I wouldn’t have been as keen and maybe wouldn’t have pushed the deal through. It’s the biggest deal I’ve ever made.”

“How’s that?”

“Why, Bud, can’t you see what’s wrong with the schooner?”

“No.”

“Jake! The schooner’s as sound as I am. She’s not as young as she used to be, but she’s one of the old navy that was built to wear. I’ve examined her. You remember my telling you that rats couldn’t beat humans in tricks? Well, it was just beginning to hit me then that maybe all that raffle and dirt on her deck and all the yarns I’d heard about her were put out by Jake.”

“Why?”

“Why, to keep his job. He don’t want her sold. She’s his job. Besides, he’s been collecting five dollars a time, and maybe more, from every mug of a buyer he’s given ‘a straight tip’ about her. That’s human nature. He wouldn’t have got a cent for praising her.”

“Good Lord! What a scoundrel! Why didn’t you tell him straight out instead of handing him that money?”

“Not me,” said Hank. “Have him maybe sink her at her moorings to-night, or play some dirty trick. To-morrow, with Tyrebuck’s letter in my hand, it will be different. But only for him, I wouldn’t have got her for nothing.”

“Only for yourself, you mean,” said George.

“Well, maybe,” said Hank.