The Other Fellow

sixty, who spent his early life at sea as man-o'-war's-man, common sailor, and then mate, and his later years at home in Dort, picking up odd jobs of ferriage or stevedori

atter how hard it rains, Peter is always dry. The water may pour in rivulets from off his cap, and run down his forehead and from the end of his gargoyle of a nose, but no drop ever seems to wet his skin. When it rains the fiercest, I, of course, re

ns. He says-"Mynheer, dot manus ist er blowdy rock." He has learned this expression from the English sailors unloading coal at the big docks opposite Pappendrecht, and he

at her aft awning has been hauled taut over its hoops; that her lockers of empty cigar boxes (receptacles for brushes) have been clewed up; the cocoa-mattin

our course for the open Maas. For I am in search of Dutch boats to-day, as near like Clays's as I can find. I round the point above the old India warehouses, I catch sight of the topmasts of two old luggers anchored in midstream, their long red pennants flat

lling can overcome. So I at once convene the Board of Strategy, Lieutenant-Commander Peter Jansen, Red Tub Navy, in the chair. That distinguished nava

he turns the boat toward a low-lying building anchored out

icular directions are given to avoid "submarine cables planted here." In Dort, where none of t

ssorting my brushes. He rowed our craft toward the bath-house with the skill of a man-o'-war's-man, twisted the painter around a short post,

lio containing my stock of gray papers of different tones; opened my sketch frame, caught a sheet of paper tight between its cleats; spread p

ray cloud that hung over the river split into feathery mass

of the High Pan-Jam who managed the bath, and who at the moment was entirely oblivious of the fact that only two inches of pine board separated him from an enthusiastic painter working like mad, and an equally alert marine

the heart is on fire; when the bare paper begins to lose itself in purple distances and long stretches of tumbling water, and the pictured boats take definite shape, and the lines of the rigging begin to tell; when little by little, with a pat here and a dab there, there comes from out this flat space a something that th

t it

very minute-instead of disporting himself in an entirely idiotic and disastrous way. Disastrous, because you might have seen the sketch which I

, and at once opened it and screwed together the jointed handle. Then he began searching for some convenient supporting hook on which to hang his shield of defence. Next a brilliant, intellectual dynamite-bomb of a thought split his cranium. He

rts. You can imagine, too, the consternation of the peaceful inmates of the open pools, whose laughter had now and then risen above the sough of the wind and splash of the water. Almost immediately I

idea what he said. I didn't know then and I don't know now. I only remember that his dialect sounded like the traditional crackling of thorns under a pot, includi

blazed out that we were out of everybody's way and on the lee side of the structure; that there was no sign up on that side; that I was a

elve o'clook,-nopody ba'd now;"-This in Dutch, but it meant tha

shadow side all purplish gray. Its warm high-lights came all right, but I was half out of my head trying to get its shadow-tones true with Payne's gr

Here, give him half a gulden and tell him t

is swinging footsteps could be heard growing fainte

nished; another wash over their sails would bring them all right. Then the tramp as of armed men came from the in-shor

mind, you stay 'ere-no go. Ta

o had scraped his toes on the fence

, English, and polyglot, and threatening to sponge

e it pleases him, but because the power behind him compels it. I instantly rose from my stool, touched my hat in respectful military salute, and opened my cigarette-case. The gendarme selected a cigarette with perfect coolness and good humor, and

up. Some old Koop or De Witt or

one perilously near the officer's face. The original invective w

cy," I asked, "whether I sit in my boat and

you have taken up your position on the women's side of the bath-house. They bathe from twelve o'clock till