The Innocents

Laughingly, then bitterly, he rebuked himself for fear. And presently he was bespelled by the wonder of the unknown. Beyond the water through which they slid, black and smooth as polished basalt, he saw a lighthouse winking. From his steamer time-table he learned that it must be Great Gull Island light. Great Gull Island! It suggested to him thunderous cliffs with surf flung up on beetling rock, screaming gulls, and a smuggler on guard with menacing rifle. He lost his fear of fear; he ceased to think about his accustomed life of two aisles and the show-case of new models and the background of boxes and boxes and boxes of shoes--tokens of the drudgery that was ground into him like grit. The Father who worried was changing into the adventurous wanderer that henceforward he would be--for two weeks. He stretched out his short arms and breathed deeply of the night wind.

Half an hour later he was asleep. But not, it must be confess