By the bequest of an elder brother, I was left enough money to see me through asmall college in Ohio, and to secure me four years in a medical school in theEast. Why I chose medicine I hardly know. Possibly the career of a surgeonattracted the adventurous element in me. Perhaps, coming of a family ofdoctors, I merely followed the line of least resistance. It may be, indirectlybut inevitably, that I might be on the yacht Ella on that terrible night ofAugust 12, more than a year ago.
I got through somehow. I played quarterback on the football team, and made somemoney coaching. In summer I did whatever came to hand, from chartering asail-boat at a summer resort and taking passengers, at so much a head, tochecking up cucumbers in Indiana for a Western pickle house.
I was practically alone. Commencement left me with a diploma, a new dress-suit,an out-of-date medical library, a box of surgical instruments of the same dateas the books, and an incipient case of typhoid fever.
I was twenty-four, six feet tall, and forty inches around the chest. Also, Ihad lived clean, and worked and played hard. I got over the fever finally,pretty much all bone and appetite; but—alive. Thanks to the college, myhospital care had cost nothing. It was a good thing: I had just seven dollarsin the world.
The yacht Ella lay in the river not far from my hospital windows. She was not ayacht when I first saw her, nor at any time, technically, unless I use the wordi