London River

a black cat crossed my path when I left home this morning, and a very nice black cat it was." The gangway was hauled up. The tug

ve supposed was purchasable at second-hand. But lower, much lower in the shopkeeper's estimate than even such commodities-thrown into a bin because they were rubbish, and yet not quite valuel

ything happen in such ships to bring one to awe and wonder? The dark of the human mind is now lighted, one may say, with electricity. We have no shadows to make us hesitate. That book of sea superstitions was on my table, some weeks later, and a sailor, who gave up trading to the

e supposed to have any more regard for the mysteries than you would find in the Cold Storage Gazette. When he is home again we go to the British Museum. He always takes me there. It is one of his weaknesses. I invited him, when last we were there, to let us search out a certain exhibit from Egypt about which curious stories are whispered. "No you don't," he exclaimed peremptorily. He gave me no argument, but I gathered that it is very wel

his time we were continuing our talk in the chart-room. An old cap of his was on the floor, upside down. I faced him there, in rebuke of this reliance on instinct, but he was staring at the cap, a little startled. Then he dashed past me without a word for the bridge. While following him at leisure I heard the telegraph ring. Outside I could see nothing but the pallor of a blind world. The flat sea was but the fugitive lustre of what might have been water; but all melted into nothing at a distance which could have been anywhere. The tremor of the ship lessened, and the noise of the wash fell, for the speed had slackened. We might have become hushed, and were waiting,

d the sun invisible. He went on, to find nothing but worse weather. He did sight, however, two other steamers, on the same course as himself, evidently having calculated to pass Ushant in the morning; his own calculation. He would be off Ushant later, for his speed was less than theirs. There they were, a lucky and unexpected confirmation of his own reasoning. His chief officer, an elderly man full of doubt, smiled again, and smacked his ha

e question, as a war has helped us to remember, never troubles the lucky ones. Yet I wish to add that later, my friend, when in waters not well known, in charge of a ship on her maiden voyage-for he always got the last and best ship from his owners, they having recognized that his stars were well-assorted-was warn

ed to it, his later misfortune proves nothing; except, perhaps, that the last thing on which a man should rely, unless he must, is the supposed favour of the

rything private and personal about us which is below the notice even of the Freudian professor is pigeon-holed by officials at the Town Hall, I enjoy reading the abundant evidence for the Extra Hand, that one of the ship's company who cannot be counted in the watch,