Free Gallions Reach by H. M. Tomlinson Page A

very like life. One of them looked up at him over his spectacles in critical fixity, as if he had interrupted a private rehearsal. In his embarrassment Jimmy shut the door at once, without going in. Thought it was time for tea. Perhaps his watch had stopped.
    â€œWho was that?” asked the spectacled man of his neighbour.
    â€œDon’t know. Didn’t see him.”
    â€œThought it might be the man who got the
Altair
. He was supposed to join her yesterday.”
    Another man lowered his cup. “The
Altair
is my ship,” he said.
    â€œSo that’s that. Pleased to meet you, sir. She’s anchored astern of mine, the
Harlow
.” His paper went aside. “Nothing in that,” he grumbled, “I always go to it as if it could no more be missed than the chronometer, but somehow I can never get the time by it. Anything in your radical rag, doctor? And don’t keep those rolls.”
    The elderly doctor smiled sideways. “Why, yes, Captain Bennett, plenty in it. You are unjust. You must have misseda whole page of bargains in Oxford Street. And I see our owner’s horse is fancied for the Derby. You didn’t see that? It struck me as strange that racing stables should be run on ships that never will pay.”
    â€œGet away. If that horse is like the
Harlow
, he’ll want some stoking to raise the knots out of him. But I know what you mean. I don’t like your talk. You’re too fond of showing notions by the arse-end.”
    Jimmy went out of the hotel. The look of that room had lessened his specific gravity. Quite a hopeful hint in the air, that day, of Rip van Winkle. Perhaps he had not, like Rip, secured a very long advantage on the dear old home; he could not have left it so securely far behind. For his beard was about the same. It was not venerable. How much of the calendar had he dodged? Through a slip in the celestial cogs he might have been wangled into another year. What year was this? It was a buoyant thought, it ascended as a morning grace, and at least he could continue to enjoy it till he reached a newsboy and the truth. There was enough about him to justify brief enjoyment of the idea. Evidently Gallions was outside the world which used to have him. Its railway station clock was timed to a sparrow’s nest. If time is one of man’s devices, like fish-knives and drains, then alter the clock when its current hour is unsympathetic. Choose your own time, if the local duration feels untimely. To the devil with Greenwich, if it is out of your date. Settle on your own meridian, and stick to it. He paused to take in a noisy group of lascars.
    The station was busy with a life that was foreign to him. This was a boundary where diversities melted, Hindus, white men, Chinese, negroes, as if Gallions served as a common denominator of men; turbans, woolly knobs, silk hats, and caps. No wonder the clock was abandoned to nesting-time. A rough and dusty enclosure at the back of a shed was cumbered with vans that were loaded with packages port-marked for coasts that were only names in London.Even the vans here had more faith than the far thought had a reality. What you had to do was to follow it up. Only custom and timidity prevent us from stepping over the last row of the cabbage plot.
    A newsboy offered him a paper. Had he better take it? It was certain that paper did not belong to the day he hoped he had reached. Cowardly to step back. That boy was handing him a line of return to Billiter Avenue. But perhaps there was no choice. The boy was destiny right enough, though destiny ought to wipe its nose. He took the paper, opened it.
    Nothing was in it. Not a name he knew, not a name which concerned him. No big type for such as he. Useless for the unenterprising to kill anybody. He looked at the date. He had lost a day. This was to-morrow morning. He would have to keep to his own time. The night before last was with the Kings of Memphis. He dropped the paper, returned to