“Sure I do, and I thank you for sayin’ it, sir.  And that’s why I’m with you.  And when you’ve nailed another crowd of treasure-hunters and got the ship ready, you’ll just ship me along as steward, with Kwaque, and Killeny Boy, and the rest of our family.  You’ve adopted me, now, an’ I’m your grown-up son, an’ you’ve got to listen to me.  The Bronx is the hotel for you—­fine-soundin’ name, ain’t it?  That’s atmosphere.  Folk’ll listen half to you an’ more to your hotel.  I tell you, you leaning back in a big leather chair talkin’ treasure with a two-bit cigar in your mouth an’ a twenty-cent drink beside you, why that’s like treasure.  They just got to believe.  An’ if you’ll come along now, sir, we’ll trot out an’ buy them suit-cases.”

Right bravely the Ancient Mariner drove to the Bronx in a taxi, registered his “Charles Stough Greenleaf” in an old-fashioned hand, and took up anew the activities which for years had kept him free of the poor-farm.  No less bravely did Dag Daughtry set out to seek work.  This was most necessary, because he was a man of expensive luxuries.  His family of Kwaque, Michael, and Cocky required food and shelter; more costly than that was maintenance of the Ancient Mariner in the high-class hotel; and, in addition, was his six-quart thirst.

But it was a time of industrial depression.  The unemployed problem was bulking bigger than usual to the citizens of San Francisco.  And, as regarded steamships and sailing vessels, there were three stewards for every Steward’s position.  Nothing steady could Daughtry procure, while his occasional odd jobs did not balance his various running expenses.  Even did he do pick-and-shovel work, for the municipality, for three days, when he had to give way, according to the impartial procedure, to another needy one whom three days’ work would keep afloat a little longer.

Daughtry would have put Kwaque to work, except that Kwaque was impossible.  The black, who had only seen Sydney from steamers’ decks, had never been in a city in his life.  All he knew of the world was steamers, far-outlying south-sea isles, and his own island of King William in Melanesia.  So Kwaque remained in the two rooms, cooking and housekeeping for his master and caring for Michael and Cocky.  All of which was prison for Michael, who had been used to the run of ships, of coral beaches and plantations.

But in the evenings, sometimes accompanied a few steps in the rear by Kwaque, Michael strolled out with Steward.  The multiplicity of man-gods on the teeming sidewalks became a real bore to Michael, so that man-gods, in general, underwent a sharp depreciation.  But Steward, the particular god of his fealty and worship, appreciated.  Amongst so many gods Michael felt bewildered, while Steward’s Abrahamic bosom became more than ever the one sure haven where harshness and danger never troubled.

“Mind your step,” is the last word and warning of twentieth-century city life.  Michael was not slow to learn it, as he conserved his own feet among the countless thousands of leather-shod feet of men, ever hurrying, always unregarding of the existence and right of way of a lowly, four-legged Irish terrier.