I'm going to help."
"How can you?" she said. "I mean, how will you?"
"Shipping is my business," he said. "I'm going to help sailor men. See
that they have somewhere decent to go to, and don't get robbed. And then
there are the Lascars, poor devils. Nobody ever takes their part."
"How did you come across them?" she asked. "The articles, I mean. Did
Flo give them to you?"
"No," he answered. "Just chance. Caught sight of your photo."
"Tell me," she said. "If it had been the photo of a woman with a bony
throat and a beaky nose would you have read them?"
He thought a moment. "Guess not," he answered. "You're just as bad," he
continued. "Isn't it the pale-faced young clergyman with the wavy hair
and the beautiful voice that you all flock to hear? No getting away from
nature. But it wasn't only that." He hesitated.
"I want to know," she said.
"You looked so young," he answered. "I had always had the idea that it
was up to the old people to put the world to rights--that all I had to do
was to look after myself. It came to me suddenly while you were talking
to me--I mean while I was reading you: that if you were worrying yourself
about it, I'd got to come in, too--that it would be mean of me not to.
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