eyes fixed on vacancy, or--perhaps--(I wouldn't be too hard on him)
on a vision. He has the habit, or, say, the fault, of defective
mantelpiece clocks, of suddenly stopping in the very fulness of the
tick. If you have ever lived with a clock afflicted with that
perversity, you know how vexing it is--such a stoppage. I was vexed
with Marlow. He was smiling faintly while I waited. He even laughed a
little. And then I said acidly:

"Am I to understand that you have ferreted out something comic in the
history of Flora de Barral?"

"Comic!" he exclaimed. "No! What makes you say? ... Oh, I laughed--
did I? But don't you know that people laugh at absurdities that are
very far from being comic? Didn't you read the latest books about
laughter written by philosophers, psychologists? There is a lot of
them..."

"I dare say there has been a lot of nonsense written about laughter--and
tears, too, for that matter," I said impatiently.

"They say," pursued the unabashed Marlow, "that we laugh from a sense of
superiority. Therefore, observe, simplicity, honesty, warmth of
feeling, delicacy of heart and of conduct, self-confidence, magnanimity
are laughed at, because the presence of these traits in a man's
character often puts him into difficult, cruel or absurd situations, and
makes us, the majority who are fairly free as a rule from these
peculiarities, feel pleasantly superior."

"Speak for yourself," I said. "But have you discovered all these fine
things in the story; or has Mr Powell discovered them to you in his
artless talk? Have you two been having good healthy laughs together?
Come! Are your sides aching yet, Marlow?"

Marlow took no offence at my banter. He was quite serious.

"I should not like to say off-hand how much of that there was," he
pursued with amusing caution. "But there was a situation, tense enough
for the signs of it to give many surprises to Mr Powell--neither of
them shocking in itself, but with a cumulative effect which made the
whole unforgettable in the detail of its progress. And the first
surprise came very soon, when the explosives (to which he owed his
sudden chance of engagement)--dynamite in cases and blasting powder in
barrels--taken on board, main hatch battened for sea, cook restored to
his functions in the galley, anchor fished and the tug ahead, rounding
the South Foreland, and with the sun sinking clear and red down the
purple vista of the channel, he went on the poop