The Bottineau courant. (Bottineau, Bottineau County, N.D.) 1895-1929, 1915-10-28

command Of such q vessel not from
choice. but necessity, precisely as 9th
or types Of unemployed and hopeless
men fall back on vagrancy and crime.
Her crew was picked from the drees
Of scattered ports. They were Las.
cars, Kanakas. Chinese, and monde
scripts from here and there, halec
forth and signed from dives wher,
human garbage trickles down to tt
sea.
At first they interested me as new
and roughened types Of men; yet, as
I say, I was more than grateful for
the shoulder-touch Of at least one be-
ing of my own sort.
From our arrival, none of them, ex-
cept the captain and officers, took the
slightest pains to conceal that they re-
garded us as unwelcome interlopers,
and the courtesy of the afterguard
was short-lived enough. In that des-
ert of taciturnity, Mansfield babbled
like a brook and overlooked with
young sentimentality.
The first leg of our Journey ended
at Borneo, leaving us as unacquainted
with officers and seamen, save in the
surface details of personal appearance
as we had been at Port Said. Now
we were dropping Sandakan harbor
over the stern. Ramparts OF sand
stone were burning with a rudy glow
in the sunset. Already the sprawIing
hillside town, framed in it's man
grove sWamps, was lost around the
rocky buttress of the harbor's mouth.
A sense of isolation settled on us.
AS we had nosed our way outward,
Mansfield had been leaning silently
on the after-rail. His eyes had dwelt
on the green gardens and white walks
Of the British consulate, which sits
upon the hill. Now we had seer the
last of that, and of the bays flotilla
Of matting-sailed junks. Off the port
bow was only beetling sandstone and
the countless gulls, flashing white as
they tilted the snowy Innings of their
wings into the sun. He talked for a
time, in low tones, of the girl in Sus-
sex, as men will talk when they are
homesick; ard then he rather shame
facedly produced from somewhere
and opened at random a much batter.
ed note book, written close in a wom-
ans hand.
81 dare say" he hesitatingly told
me, Il have no moral right to read
this. It's quite personal, yet it's I'M
signed. Invasion of privacy can't ap-
apply to anonymous persons, you
know"
He paused for a minute and 1ndo-
lently watched the screaming hordes
of Sandakan birds as if awaiting my
agreement, but I said nothing.
"You see," he continued, "I've been
living lately in a cheap boarding
house at Cairo and, before that, in
beastly Soudan inns; so when l drew
a bit in advance, I resolved to treat
myself to a day or two at Shepherds.
"You remember how full the house
was. They had to give me a small
room on the roof. 1t was really a
sort Of servants room in less crowd
ed times, l fancy. A beggar of an
Arab used to pray on his rug in front
of my door. In rummaging about I
found this" He held up the note
book.
II looked for an address, meaning
to mail it to it's owner, but there was
no address and only given names.
Some servant must have found it in
a vacated room and later left it in
the one to which I had fallen heir.
Seems to have been some girls desuI-
tory, but intimate. diary. Just an
entry now and then, with evidently
long gaps between. You see, the first
writing is immature, almost childish,
and the last is dated at Cairo"
I nodded my head, but said nothing.
He appeared deeply interested, but
his simple punctilio required the re-
Increment of my approval before he
could quite clear the skirts of his con.
science in the matter Of having sam
pied it's contents.
"You see." he half apologized. my
first glance was disinterested; I was
merely seeking to identify ownership.
But from just a few lines, read in that
fashion, I saw that it was" his voice
became serious, almost awed-"well,
that it was rather wonderful. Some
girl has been putting her heart into
and she's written a human doc
ument."
Again he paused, drumming on the
rail with the fingers of one hand.
"From a half-dozen bits of Chin
bote pottery" he reflected, II can
read q great deal Of the habits and
life Of the Incas. I can restore an ex.
tinct mammal from some fragments
Of skeleton But I find it jolly din.
cult to understand anything about q
woman. II a fellow means to marry, !
be ought to try to understand. That's
why I'd like to have q dip into this.
Do you think I might"
do you think" I countered, smil.
Ing, that you would have the right
10 read somebody's UNSIGNED lovelet.