Page:Tom Beauling (1901).pdf/118

 But long live the gods! And longest live Oceanus, son of Gaea. But of goddesses, may Phylis live the longest! salutes her.

Dear Phylis: Much have I walked silent by the shores of the loud-resounding sea, revolving your father, the prodigious payer of bills, in my stout heart. A draft has not come, and my divers are clamoring for their pay. We are back from the fishing-grounds, with the smell of the rotting shell still in our nostrils, and many pearls under lock and key. The flower out of decay, out of the oyster the pearl! And if a draft doesn't come I cannot pay my bills, and my pearls will be stolen from me. Some of them are beauties. It is great sport, pearl-fishing—more exciting than whales, because there is a bigger element of greed, and twice as dangerous, for the boats are more fragile and the storms more severe. I went down once, because I dreamed that if I did I should find the most desirable pearl in the ocean. I didn't. They put me in