ds laid by, and if they
don't like my notions of duty I would just as soon go home as not. I am
an old man, and I have always spoken my mind. All I care for now is to
see my girls married before I die." He was a little crazy on that
point. His three daughters were awfully nice, though they resembled him
amazingly, and on the mornings he woke up with a gloomy view of their
matrimonial prospects the office would read it in his eye and tremble,
because, they said, he was sure to have somebody for breakfast. However,
that morning he did not eat the renegade, but, if I may be allowed to
carry on the metaphor, chewed him up very small, so to speak, and--ah!
ejected him again.

'Thus in a very few moments I saw his monstrous bulk descend in haste
and stand still on the outer steps. He had stopped close to me for the
purpose of profound meditation: his large purple cheeks quivered. He
was biting his thumb, and after a while noticed me with a sidelong vexed
look. The other three chaps that had landed with him made a little group
waiting at some distance. There was a sallow-faced, mean little chap
with his arm in a sling, and a long individual in a blue flannel coat,
as dry as a chip and no stouter than a broomstick, with drooping grey
moustaches, who looked about him with an air of jaunty imbecility. The
third was an upstanding, broad-shouldered youth, with his hands in his
pockets, turning his back on the other two who appeared to be talking
together earnestly. He stared across the empty Esplanade. A ramshackle
gharry, all dust and venetian blinds, pulled up short opposite the
group, and the driver, throwing up his right foot over his knee, gave
himself up to the critical examination of his toes. The young chap,
making no movement, not even stirring his head, just stared into the
sunshine. This was my first view of Jim. He looked as unconcerned and
unapproachable as only the young can look. There he stood, clean-limbed,
clean-faced, firm on his feet, as promising a boy as the sun ever shone
on; and, looking at him, knowing all he knew and a little more too, I
was as angry as though I had detected him trying to get something out of
me by false pretences. He had no business to look so sound. I thought
to myself--well, if this sort can go wrong like that . . . and I felt
as though I could fling down my hat and dance on it from sheer
mortification, as I once saw the skipper of an Italian barque do because
his duffer of a mate got i