They were the touts of the other ship-chandlers, and he placid at
my back, ignored their existence.

We parted on the quay, after he had expressed quietly the hope of
seeing me often "at the store." He had a smoking-room for captains
there, with newspapers and a box of "rather decent cigars." I left
him very unceremoniously.

My consignees received me with the usual business heartiness, but
their account of the state of the freight-market was by no means so
favourable as the talk of the wrong Jacobus had led me to expect.
Naturally I became inclined now to put my trust in his version,
rather. As I closed the door of the private office behind me I
thought to myself: "H'm. A lot of lies. Commercial diplomacy.
That's the sort of thing a man coming from sea has got to expect.
They would try to charter the ship under the market rate."

In the big, outer room, full of desks, the chief clerk, a tall,
lean, shaved person in immaculate white clothes and with a shiny,
closely-cropped black head on which silvery gleams came and went,
rose from his place and detained me affably. Anything they could
do for me, they would be most happy. Was I likely to call again in
the afternoon? What? Going to a funeral? Oh, yes, poor Captain
H-.

He pulled a long, sympathetic face for a moment, then, dismissing
from this workaday world the baby, which had got ill in a tempest
and had died from too much calm at sea, he asked me with a dental,
shark-like smile--if sharks had false teeth--whether I had yet made
my little arrangements for the ship's stay in port.