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C. B. L.

NOTE

I am indebted to the editors of the “Century”, the “Saturday Evening Post,” “ Harper’s Bazaar,” “Puck,” the “Critic,” the “Criterion,” and the S. S. McClure Syndicate for permission to use the articles which first met printers’ ink in their columns.

C. B. L.

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AN ETCHING OF THE SEA, BY A LANDLUBBER

The sea lay low in the offing, and as far as the eye could reach, immense white-caps rode upon it as quietly as pond-lilies on the bosom of a lake.

Fleecy clouds dotted the sky, and far off toward the horizon a full-rigged four-masted cat-boat lugged and luffed in the calm evening breezes. Her sails were piped to larboard, starboard, and port; and as she rolled steadily along in the heavy wash and undertow, her companion-light, already kindled, shed a delicate ray across the bay to where the dull red disk of the sun was dipping its colors.

Her cordage lay astern, in the neat coils that seamen know so well how to make. The anchor had been weighed this half-hour, and the figures put down in the log; for Captain Bliffton was not a man to put off doing anything that lay in the day’s watch.