extravagance. All the same, it was a remarkable feat to have
produced it so quickly, and I congratulated the steward on his
smartness in a somewhat ominous tone. He gave me a deprecatory
smile and, in a way I didn't know what to make of, blinked his fine
dark eyes in the direction of the guest.

The latter asked under his breath for another cup of coffee, and
nibbled ascetically at a piece of very hard ship's biscuit. I
don't think he consumed a square inch in the end; but meantime he
gave me, casually as it were, a complete account of the sugar crop,
of the local business houses, of the state of the freight market.
All that talk was interspersed with hints as to personalities,
amounting to veiled warnings, but his pale, fleshy face remained
equable, without a gleam, as if ignorant of his voice. As you may
imagine I opened my ears very wide. Every word was precious. My
ideas as to the value of business friendship were being favourably
modified. He gave me the names of all the disponible ships
together with their tonnage and the names of their commanders.
From that, which was still commercial information, he condescended
to mere harbour gossip. The Hilda had unaccountably lost her
figurehead in the Bay of Bengal, and her captain was greatly
affected by this. He and the ship had been getting on in years
together and the old gentleman imagined this strange event to be
the forerunner of his own early dissolution. The Stella had
experienced awful weather off the Cape--had her decks swept, and
the chief officer washed overboard. And only a few hours before
reaching port the baby died.

Poor Captain H- and his wife were terribly cut up. If they had
only been able to bring it into port alive it could have been