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that Mr. Melford Croon was in every way as undesirable a citizen as he had thought, and second, that Mr. Melford Croon’s contribution to the funds of righteousness was long overdue. Mr. Croon’s account was, in fact, exactly five thousand pounds overdrawn; and that state of affairs could not be allowed to continue.
    Nevertheless, it took the Saint twenty-four hours of intensive thought to devise a poetic retribution; and when the solution came to him it was so simple that he had to laugh.
    Mr. Croon went down to his house on the river for the week-end. He invariably spent his week-ends there in the summer, driving out of London on the Friday afternoon and refreshing himself from his labours with three happy days of rural peace. Mr. Croon had an unexpected appetite for simple beauty and the works of nature: he was rarely so contented as when he was lying out in a deck-chair and spotless white flannels, directing his gardener’s efforts at the flower-beds, or sipping an iced whisky-and-soda on his balcony while he watched supple young athletes propelling punts up and down the stream.
    This week-end was intended to be no exception to his usual custom. He arrived at Marlow in time for dinner, and prepared for an early night in anticipation of the tireless revels of a mixed company of his friends who were due to join him the next day. It was scarcely eleven o’clock when he dismissed his servant and mixed himself a final drink before going to bed.
    He heard the front door-bell ring, and rose from his armchair grudgingly. He had no idea who could be calling on him at that hour; and when he had opened the door and found that there was no one visible outside he was even more annoyed.
    He returned to the sitting-room, and gulped down the remainder of his nightcap without noticing the bitter tang that had not been there when he poured it out. The taste came into his mouth after the liquid had been swallowed, and he grimaced. He started to walk towards the door, and the room spun around. He felt himself falling helplessly before he could cry out.
    When he woke up, his first impression was that he had been buried alive. He was lying on a hard narrow surface, with one shoulder squeezed up against a wall on his left, and the ceiling seemed to be only a few inches above his head. Then his sight cleared a little, and he made out that he was in a bunk in a tiny unventilated compartment lighted by a single circular window. He struggled up on one elbow, and groaned. His head was one reeling whirligig of aches, and he felt horribly sick.
    Painfully he forced his mind back to his last period of consciousness. He remembered pouring out that last whisky-and-soda-the ring at the front door-the bitter taste in the glass… . Then nothing but an infinity of empty blackness… . How long had he been unconscious? A day? Two days? A week? He had no means of telling.
    With an agonizing effort he dragged himself off the bunk and staggered across the floor. It reared and swayed sickeningly under him, so that he could scarcely keep his balance. His stomach was somersaulting nauseatingly inside him. Somehow he got over to the one window, the pane was frosted over, but outside he could hear the splash of water and the shriek of wind. The explanation dawned on him dully-he was in a ship.
    Mr. Croon’s knees gave way under him, and he sank moaning to the floor. A spasm of sickness left him gasping in a clammy sweat. The air was stiflingly close, and there was a smell of oil in it which made it almost unbreathable. Stupidly, unbelievingly, he felt the floor vibrating to the distant rhythm of the engines. A ship! He’d been drugged-kidnapped-shanghaied! Even while he tried to convince himself that it could not be true, the floor heaved up again with the awful deliberateness of a seventh wave; and Mr. Croon heaved up with it. …
    He never knew how he managed to crawl to the door between the paroxysms of torment that racked him with every movement of the