"Tweaking his nose," said Captain Giles in a scandalized tone."Much use it would be to you."That remark was so irrelevant that one could make no answer to it.But the sense of the ab-surdity was beginning at last to exercise its well-known fascination.I felt I must not let the man talk to me any more.I got up, observing curtly that he was too much for me--that Icouldn't make him out.
Before I had time to move away he spoke again in a changed tone of obstinacy and puffing nervously at his pipe.
"Well--he's a--no account cuss--anyhow.
You just--ask him.That's all."
That new manner impressed me--or rather made me pause.But sanity asserting its sway at once I left the verandah after giving him a mirthless smile.In a few strides I found myself in the dining room, now cleared and empty.But during that short time various thoughts occurred to me, such as: that Giles had been making fun of me, expecting some amusement at my expense;that I probably looked silly and gullible; that Iknew very little of life....
The door facing me across the dining room flew open to my extreme surprise.It was the door inscribed with the word "Steward" and the man himself ran out of his stuffy, Philistinish lair in his absurd, hunted-animal manner, making for the garden door.
To this day I don't know what made me call after him."I say! Wait a minute." Perhaps it was the sidelong glance he gave me; or possibly I was yet under the influence of Captain Giles'
mysterious earnestness.Well, it was an impulse of some sort; an effect of that force somewhere within our lives which shapes them this way or that.For if these words had not escaped from my lips (my will had nothing to do with that) my existence would, to be sure, have been still a sea-man's existence, but directed on now to me utterly inconceivable lines.
No.My will had nothing to do with it.In-deed, no sooner had I made that fateful noise than I became extremely sorry for it.Had the man stopped and faced me I would have had to retire in disorder.For I had no notion to carry out Captain Giles' idiotic joke, either at my own expense or at the expense of the Steward.
But here the old human instinct of the chase came into play.He pretended to be deaf, and I, without thinking a second about it, dashed along my own side of the dining table and cut him off at the very door.
"Why can't you answer when you are spoken to?" I asked roughly.
He leaned against the lintel of the door.He looked extremely wretched.Human nature is, Ifear, not very nice right through.There are ugly spots in it.I found myself growing angry, and that, I believe, only because my quarry looked so woe-begone.Miserable beggar!
I went for him without more ado."I under-stand there was an official communication to the Home from the Harbour Office this morning.Is that so?"Instead of telling me to mind my own business, as he might have done, he began to whine with an undertone of impudence.He couldn't see me anywhere this morning.He couldn't be expected to run all over the town after me.
"Who wants you to?" I cried.And then my eyes became opened to the inwardness of things and speeches the triviality of which had been so baffling and tiresome.
I told him I wanted to know what was in that letter.My sternness of tone and behaviour was only half assumed.Curiosity can be a very fierce sentiment--at times.
He took refuge in a silly, muttering sulkiness.
It was nothing to me, he mumbled.I had told him I was going home.And since I was going home he didn't see why he should....
That was the line of his argument, and it was irrelevant enough to be almost insulting.Insult-ing to one's intelligence, I mean.
In that twilight region between youth and maturity, in which I had my being then, one is peculiarly sensitive to that kind of insult.I am afraid my behaviour to the Steward became very rough indeed.But it wasn't in him to face out anything or anybody.Drug habit or solitary tippling, perhaps.And when I forgot myself so far as to swear at him he broke down and began to shriek.
I don't mean to say that he made a great out-cry.It was a cynical shrieking confession, only faint--piteously faint.It wasn't very coherent either, but sufficiently so to strike me dumb at first.
I turned my eyes from him in righteous indig-nation, and perceived Captain Giles in the ve-randah doorway surveying quietly the scene, his own handiwork, if I may express it in that way.
His smouldering black pipe was very noticeable in his big, paternal fist.So, too, was the glitter of his heavy gold watch-chain across the breast of his white tunic.He exhaled an atmosphere of virtu-ous sagacity serene enough for any innocent soul to fly to confidently.I flew to him.
"You would never believe it," I cried."It was a notification that a master is wanted for some ship.There's a command apparently going about and this fellow puts the thing in his pocket."The Steward screamed out in accents of loud despair: "You will be the death of me!"The mighty slap he gave his wretched forehead was very loud, too.But when I turned to look at him he was no longer there.He had rushed away somewhere out of sight.This sudden disappear-ance made me laugh.
This was the end of the incident--for me.
Captain Giles, however, staring at the place where the Steward had been, began to haul at his gor-geous gold chain till at last the watch came up from the deep pocket like solid truth from a well.
Solemnly he lowered it down again and only then said:
"Just three o'clock.You will be in time--if you don't lose any, that is.""In time for what?" I asked.
"Good Lord! For the Harbour Office.This must be looked into.
