In every red-blooded being there lies a latent gipsy or a dormant desperado who would a'wandering go across the mighty main or into the wild and woolly waste.

In the heart of the most mousey man there lurks a bad bold buccaneer with a scarlet bandana bound round his pagan pate and a glistening bean-slicer in his teeth. Few can escape for ever the prankish promptings of this ulterior rascal who has passed from father to son since the good old days. Deep beneath the braces of courteous cavaliers of commerce crouches a morganatic Morgan, a hibernating Hayes or a tentative Turpin awaiting that moment which comes to all men when they rebel against the tyranny of the tie and the servitude of the serviette and say, “To heck with pants, petrol-pumps and plumbers—let's hit the horizon!”

For twenty years they may cock a deaf'un to the wheezy whisperings of their atavistic lodger. They may ignore him when he mutters on Monday mornings, “C'mon! Let's hop it. The world's wide and there's lots to see.” But the day will come when a seagull will give them the raspberry or they will sniff a burst cocoanut while passing the fruit market and for the nonce they will be running up the Jolly Roger off Callao or hunting wild men in Borneo.

Then their vagabond varlet, their nomadic nostalgia will pounce upon them and possess them. The name of their tempestuous termagant is Sir Footloose FitzFreedom, and when he shakes the cobwebs off and blows down the barrel of his trusty rusty blunderbus it's time to pack the old port-sam and say goodbye to home and mother. His answer to each pale protest is “To horse!” or “Yo ho!” which are the ancient equivalents of “Step on it,” “What time does the train go?” or “If you don't stop trying on hats, Annie, we'll miss the boat.”