A CHANCE ENCOUNTER
I'm hoping that if I don't get across pretty soon I'll get transferred to the Atlantic Fleet."
"Gunnery, eh?" mused the other. "I see." He was silent a minute. Then: "Just write your name on the back of that card, will you?", he asked. "Here's a pencil. That's it, thanks. I'll tuck this away and perhaps I can do something for you before long. Now tell me," he went on as he slipped the card into a leather wallet, "about that little adventure you had a couple of weeks ago, for I take it that it was the Wanderer that brought in that German spy, Lieutenant—Haegel, isn't it?—and his cronies."
So Nelson told of the incident, and afterwards, led on by his sympathetic audience, told about everything else he knew! It was a veritable orgy of talk for Nelson, and later on, no longer under the spell of the other's personality, he wondered how he had ever come to do it! They parted at a junction soon after Nelson had completed an account of the attack on the Jonas Clinton, and his new acquaintance shook hands and said he hoped they would meet again and got off without further reference to that half promise. But Nelson rejoined the Wanderer in quite a hopeful frame of mind and in much better spirits than when he had left New Bedford. Of course, he
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