married to some silly girl."

It was tacitly understood in the port that John Nieven was a fierce
misogynist; and the absurd character of the sally convinced me that he
meant to be nasty--very nasty--had meant to say the most crushing thing
he could think of. My laugh sounded deprecatory. Nobody but a friend
could be so angry as that. I became a little crestfallen. Our chief
engineer also took a characteristic view of my action, but in a kindlier
spirit.

He was young, too, but very thin, and with a mist of fluffy brown beard
all round his haggard face. All day long, at sea or in harbour, he could
be seen walking hastily up and down the after-deck, wearing an
intense, spiritually rapt expression, which was caused by a perpetual
consciousness of unpleasant physical sensations in his internal economy.
For he was a confirmed dyspeptic. His view of my case was very simple.
He said it was nothing but deranged liver. Of course! He suggested I
should stay for another trip and meantime dose myself with a certain
patent medicine in which his own belief was absolute. "I'll tell you
what I'll do. I'll buy you two bottles, out of my own pocket. There. I
can't say fairer than that, can I?"

I believe he would have perpetrated the atrocity (or generosity) at the
merest sign of weakening on my part. By that time, however, I was more
discontented, disgusted, and dogged than ever. The past eighteen months,
so full of new and varied experience, appeared a dreary, prosaic waste
of days. I felt--how shall I express it?--that there was no truth to be
got out of them.

What truth? I should have been hard put to it to explain. Probably, if