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The Staten Islander had the watch on deck from ten to twelve that night. By that time the rain had ceased and the lights on the distant shore were visible, glimmering faintly, it seemed good to be on deck. The wind blew slightly chill and the waters sipped and sucked at the prow and sides. Coming above I chatted with the young sailor.

“Do you like sea life?” I asked him.

“There ain’t much to it.”

“Would you rather be on shore?”

“Well, if I didn’t have to work so hard.”

“You like one, then, as well as the other?”

“Well, on shore the hours are longer, but you get your evenings and Sundays. Out here there ain’t any hour your own, but there’s plenty days when there’s nothin’ doin’. Some days there ain’t no wind. Sometimes we cruise right ahead without touchin’ the sails. Still, it’s hard, ’cause you can’t see nobody.”

“What would you do if you were on shore?”

“Oh, go to the show.”

It developed that his heart yearned for “nights off.” The little, bright-windowed main street in New Brighton was to his vision a kind of earthly heaven. To be there of an evening when people were passing, to loaf on the corner and see the bright-eyed girls go by, to be in the village hubbub, was to him the epitome of living. The great, silent, suggestive sea meant nothing to him.