OCEAN TRAMPS
The beauty of a tune.
The beauty of the hour
When dusk embraces June:
Of all the beauties earthly
The soul of man may clip,
On earth there is no beauty
Like the beauty of a ship.
FOREWORD
I met Billy Harman on Circular Wharf, Sydney,so many years ago that I think he must be dead.He is the chief person in the first six stories of thisbook, which have appeared illustrated in anEnglish, an American and a Canadian magazine,in all of which the illustrator depicted Billy asa young, rather good-looking man. That hewas not. Billy, when I met him, was well overforty, big and scrubby-bearded, a shell-backwith a touch of the Longshoreman, blue far-seeingeyes, the eyes of a child—and an innocencenone the less delightful because streaked withguile.
Only the sea could have produced Billy, andthe Islands and the Beaches and the life whichthe Pacific makes possible for an Ocean Tramp.