An Ocean Tramp

Book Excerpt: hts darted up Fetter Lane and hovered around a grimy building where he had pursued his studies with the relentless fanaticism of youthful ambition. There, under the lamp-post at the corner, one keen evening in early spring, he had what was for him a tremendous emotional experience. In the German class (for he was all for Wilhelm Meister, Faust, The Robbers, and Dichtung und Wahrheit in those days) was a German girl learning English, a robust, vital, brown-haired wench from Stuttgart. Often when it came to his turn to read from the set piece of literature, he felt this girl's eyes upon him and he would raise his own to find her regarding him with a steady, appraising glance. And yet she seemed to vanish effectively enough in the general confusion of departure. Once she picked up his pencil and asked mutely for the use of it, and he assented with what he knew was a fiery blush. She replaced it with a firm nod of the head and her steady glance. For a few days the thought of heRead More