mired the manifestation of the reasoning faculties in man. Now a mad man, the crony of his fate, sat within easy reach of him, and the professor himself felt, in the head, as though the sun had been too long at high noon.

"I shall refresh myself with a morning bath," he remarked to the poet in explanation of what otherwise might have seemed strange behavior; and, as he loosened his shirt and stripped, continued dryly; "I have found them quite refreshing, these air baths. The sunlight, you know-the pores-brisk rubbing-I remember a pamphlet which spoke of the nourishing effect. It might do you good, too, Jerry."

Without looking at him, the professor could be thoughtful of Jerry's welfare. It was a strange sight, the professor balancing himself in the middle of the boat, trouserless, shirtless, as naked as truth, if not its facsimile, astride the middle seat, with his back to the sun, swinging his arms and rubbing his muscles with mild gusto. In view of Jerry's reverting to barbarism it may not have been so extraordinary of the professor to go back to nature and imitate the air plants in an effort to sustain himself by the pores. Nevertheless, when he sat down, clothed, he seemed more like himself.

"It is really invigorating," he argued, but neither Jerry nor the poet followed his example.

No streamer of smoke, no sail, not a fleck upon the wide expanse anywhere suggested the approach of a ship. With nothing to do now, the professor sat with his face in his hands thinking of that pent-up, overcharged, guttural maniac behind him. The poet indolently took in the aspect of sea and sky. The sea was calm, moved by a gentle restlessness. Where the low-lying hills had been, he perceived in purple mirage an isle of death.

The professor had covered his face with his hands to shut out the picture of savagery behind his back, and still he was on the verge of shuddering when the poet had reason to sit upright. Jerry was crouching low and working his way forward. At first observation gave the poet no inkling of his purpose; but as Jerry secured his

footing and drew back a bony paw to clip the professor beside the head, he spoke sharply:

"Go back and sit down, Jerry!" But Jerry only dropped his hand and stared. "Lie down-you pup!" commanded the poet still more sharply.

"Yes," acquiesced the professor, irrationally, for he could not see what was going on behind him, "be still. Do."

"Where's the other biscuit?" demanded Jerry of the poet. "You did n't eat it. You saved it. Now divvy, or I'll knock the block off this nut."

It was the language of Jerry, but the voice of ravening, and yet not so terrible a breach of the philosophic decencies as the professor's fears had led him to expect.

"The biscuit is eaten up," said the poet. "Everything is eaten up. You finished the water yourself—all of it. Try the leather in your shoes. You 're lucky to have shoes on. Just sit still; that's all you have to do. Sit still until we 're taken off."

eat it," the pro"I am glad you

"You were wise to fessor said huskily. heeded my warning. There are situations which the undisciplined cannot be expected to meet with impartiality."

"Ho! ho! bright one!" exclaimed Jerry, boisterously, from the stern. "That 's meant for a joke. Till we 're taken off! A hell of a joke! That's a regular fleet of rescue-ships out there, is n't it? See all the boats coming with beef and beans and beer and a bath-tub for the professor! Blast your soul! I want beer! I'm starving to death, and a bottle of beer would save me. Keep your old biscuit! I'll chew the ear off this nut's head. He's nutty clean through, batty. There's a screw loose somewhere. I know him. Did you see him standing up a while ago? He did n't have the nerve to jump over. Ho! ho! Did you see him row? Hey, old crow, do you know how near you came to swamping us? Why don't you jump over instead of working yourself to death?"

"Do be quiet, Jerry," said the poet, coaxingly. "I want to go back to sleep."

Jerry, subsiding, began to chew an

end of the strap about his waist. It was a piece of leather from the flesh side of the cow, very soft to the taste, and Jerry succeeded in inducing a flow of saliva.

The morning wore away without another outbreak from Jerry; the professor held his face in his hands; the poet found reverie, with his forehead resting on his arm. Jerry crooned to himself, varying the monotony by chewing, biting, and snapping at the spongy belt strap. It was early in the afternoon when he burst suddenly into a sort of plain song:

He repeated it over and over, never wearying, now softly as a lullaby, and again roaring from beginning to end as though it were a stirring passage of some epic forecastle tale. For a long time the professor was able to ignore the sinewy manner in which Jerry got a hypnotizing, barbaric emphasis out of the crude lines.

"It is a very monotonous song," he said at last wearily to the poet, "significantly egotistical."

"It is bad, quite bad," agreed the poet, critically. "It is unrhythmical. The feet are atrocious. You might call the whole thing rough-shod. At first he got a certain effect by gusto. But he seems to have made it up, and he is unable to think of anything more. He never was a poet. No sailor in his right mind ever was so much out of tune."

The professor would have said something further, but he was answered by Jerry's roar:

"Heigh-ho! Heave, oh! Listen!

I am the great American sailor boy-"

"Death," said the professor, when

Jerry's voice died away, "was for me never terrible-" The rest of the communication was drowned in Jerry's renewal of the chant.

"Have you thought about it?" asked the poet, presently, when conditions were more favorable.

"No theory I ever entertained," answered the professor, "was quite satisfactory. I am much interested in the event. Has it occurred to you that waiting is useless?"

The poet was silent.

"I do not seem to remember yesterday," the professor resumed suddenly, and added a moment later, with equal abruptness, "I have seen my last sunrise."

The professor was again interrupted by Jerry's resounding egotism.

"It

"You'll hardly miss me," the professor found opportunity to observe. would be different if I could be of any use. I have figured it out carefully in the time at my disposal. It is not a question of the freedom of the will. Many such important controversies are irrelevant, if not immaterial. I have come to the negation of matter. The atom and electron fade. There are only knots of congested force. A human being is but a vessel, a container of energy, and may he not be excused for desiring to change the form of that energy? It would follow. When an agglomeration of these knots has an incurable hunger for the infinite-"

"You mean that then it is reasonable to untie the knot intrinsicate?" asked the poet, gently. "You are coming to a defense of euthanasia?"

"I mean that it is not illogical," returned the professor, looking solemnly at the water. "It would demonstrate all that I have come to believe. If the demonstration is not a success, I shall at least find what my philosophy should have been. I remember once how a mouse, different from all other micebut that is a long story."

Still the professor was troubled. He reflected ponderously, and then asked without seeming to expect an answer:

"I wonder if I have done anything unseemly. I would like to be sure. But I cannot seem to remember yesterday." He drew from his hip-pocket a memo

randum-book, wrote with the stub of a pencil, and laid the book on the seat beside him. The poet bent his head to rest upon his folded arms. The professor stood up and shielded his eyes, observing vacancy with a nod and a knowing smile. As he moved the center of gravity a little more toward the edge, and placed one foot on the gunwale, the boat rocked. He recovered his balance, and glanced first at Jerry, then at the poet.

"Kindly excuse me," he said with the utmost politeness, and the splash immediately followed. It was a clean jump. The professor went down four feet from the side of the boat.

"Heigh-ho! Heave, oh! What did he do that for?" demanded Jerry, completely changing the sense of his chant. "Did you feel the boat rock? How he could row! And he 's not coming up. Did you see the sun wink then? Look! Why did n't the old fool go before he ate all the biscuits? He was a heavy eater and had more than his share."

The poet raised his head.

"He jumped," Jerry explained, pointing and nodding sagely. "He did n't come up, but his straw slipper did. It floated over there, and then went down after him."

You

"For many years," said the poet, "he was in search of a satisfying theorem, a great demonstration. Now he has it; if not, at any rate he has found a great negative. It was inevitable. He was an old man, very prolix. He lived too long. He left a short message, condensing the wisdom of the ages. Let us see." The poet reached for the memorandum-book and continued: "It begins, 'I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth-' see, Jerry, it is the Apostle's Creed. You will not ask me for an explanation. He was a very gentle, confused philosopher, who was able to forgive his wife because she could understand reason. It is quite certain that he meant no harm. He lived long enough to arrive at faith in the immortality of a knot of congested force. Other philosophers, Jerry, have their faults, and our professor had his; but something we must give him credit for. He tinkered with the infinite, but he never created God in his

own image. He never tried to put old bogie, the invisible joke, on wheels. He believed at the last in a knot of congested force."

"I thought he meant my lost quid of chewing-tobacco," said Jerry, and renewed his chant, which became indistinguishably jumbled on his tongue.

The ripples of the professor's departure had long since disappeared when heavy clouds shrouded the boat in deep, gray twilight. The wind came in light puffs. Jerry was the first to speak.

"Maybe he had a good idea," he said to himself, and then in louder tones addressed the same remark to the poet.

"Who?" inquired the poet. "Oh, you mean the professor. He had many

ideas."

"That was a good one," Jerry insisted.

"It depends," said the poet. "Surely you 've heard that "The door of death is made of gold.' Why not take your time in going through and examine the portals? I've often wondered about it myself." the pro

"Hell!" scoffed Jerry. "I say fessor had good idea."

"He was an old man, Jerry, confused by philosophy. If he had been younger, he would not thus have cheated himself of a great hour."

"A good idea!" shouted Jerry. "The old man had a good idea!"

"Think it over. An old man, he was born too soon. He never enjoyed his youth. He sowed philosophical wild oats, but rust got into the crop and it came out dry rot. He married a lovely woman; we must give him credit for that. But you are young, Jerry, comparatively. That is all I can claim for you. You are not too old to make the most of your opportunity. Understand, of course, that the soul is nearest perfection when it is most akin to the fiery vapor out of which it was originally created: that time is youth. Rightly speaking, youth should be a variable approaching its limit. That is an algebraic term, Jerry. It comes to this. If there were a chance of reaching land, the part of wisdom would dictate that you follow the professor before it is too late. It is only a question of seizing your minute, Jerry; of pass

ing through the golden door and examining the portals. Think it over."

"He 's off his nut, too," Jerry explained to himself, and then demanded: "What do I care about your dodgasted door? If I could walk ashore through it-I 've got a wife and two kids. I wonder what they 're up to. Then there's Lena; she 's not my wife. She broke the old woman's heart. I wonder how Lena will support her kid. A man 's a fool to mix up with two women in the same port. Hell!"

"I did n't hear," the poet said dreamily.

"I say, what 's on the other side of your golden door?"

"Probably the professor knows, though he went in the back way and may have got a rejection slip. Who can tell?"

"He had a good idea!"

"It looks like rain," the poet said drowsily.

By and by Jerry nodded in confirmation of the poet's weather judgment.

"It will rain," he said, "but it 's a good idea. A good idea."

He stood up and made sure of his footing on the stern-seat.

"I'm going," he informed the sleeping poet. He went.

The boat rocked and settled a little deeper under the poet's weight at the bow. For a time his sleep was undisturbed, and then he was awakened by the sound of waves gently slapping the stern. The wind, whipping up, blew moisture in his face and ruffled his blond hair. He could see the horizon without raising his head, and he started up suddenly to examine more closely the vacancy at the stern. He fell back murmuring:

"Perhaps he thought it was better to get in out of the rain. He was neither a poet nor a philosopher, and he really could not sing. He could hardly have acted upon principle, otherwise it might

be said that a philosopher had at last won an uncompromising follower of his system. Jerry seemed to think he was going on going on a picnic, and doubtless expected to find a free-lunch counter on the other side of the golden door."

The rain bathed his face, settled in the hollows at the base of his neck and ran in rivulets down the curvature of his gaunt ribs, which were as prominent as the flying buttresses of a cathedral. At first the drops ran along the gunwales and bottom of the boat, gathering dust and creeping like furry seeds; soon they made a pool, and the boat filled to six inches. All night the soaked pajama shirt clung to the upraised oar. The poet slept, and did not awaken after the tiny silver bullets began pelting his recumbent form, but dreamed happily of the golden door and of youth, the variable, approaching its beautiful limit, death.

It was an hour after dawn when the poet's dreaming was vaguely disconcerted by a man with a small black case in his hand who stood in the bow of the approaching tender and gave the caution:

"Easy-come up easy, now."

They came up easily, and the ship's surgeon clambered from the tender to the life-boat, keeping his companions informed of his thoughts.

"H-m, I wonder how many days. The Salvarak. A tanker, was n't she? I think I see what happened here. There must have been others. No stores, apparently. Weak, decidedly. Exposure. The rain at that may have done him some good. I never thought I'd sleep toward the last, no matter how weak. But I never starved. Accounts would probably differ. I 've always thought I'd go mad. Not too much of the stimulant. A fair heart-beat here. Narrow squeak, really; pull him through. I venture he lives to a ripe old age. By the shoulders, now-easy."