imself out of a decanter. I saw
every movement, and I said to myself mockingly as though jeering at
Franklin in my thoughts `Hallo! Here's the captain taking to drink at
last.' He poured a little brandy or whatever it was into a long glass,
filled it with water, drank about a fourth of it and stood the glass
back into the holder. Every sign of a bad drinking bout, I was saying
to myself, feeling quite amused at the notions of that Franklin. He
seemed to me an enormous ass; with his jealousy and his fears. At that
rate a month would not have been enough for anybody to get drunk. The
captain sat down in one of the swivel armchairs fixed around the table;
I had him right under me and as he turned the chair slightly, I was
looking, I may say, down his back. He took another little sip and then
reached for a book which was lying on the table. I had not noticed it
before. Altogether the proceedings of a desperate drunkard--weren't
they? He opened the book and held it before his face. If this was the
way he took to drink, then I needn't worry. He was in no danger from
that, and as to any other, I assure you no human being could have looked
safer than he did down there. I felt the greatest contempt for Franklin
just then, while I looked at Captain Anthony sitting there with a glass
of weak brandy-and-water at his elbow and reading in the cabin of his
ship, on a quiet night--the quietest, perhaps the finest, of a
prosperous passage. And if you wonder why I didn't leave off my ugly
spying I will tell you how it was. Captain Anthony was a great reader
just about that time; and I, too, I have a great liking for books. To
this day I can't come near a book but I must know what it is about. It
was a thickish volume he had there, small close print, double columns--I
can see it now. What I wanted to make out was the title at the top of
the page. I have very good eyes but he wasn't holding it conveniently--
I mean for me up there. Well, it was a history of some kind, that much
I read and then suddenly he bangs the book face down on the table, jumps
up as if something had bitten him and walks away aft.

"Funny thing shame is. I had been behaving badly and aware of it in a
way, but I didn't feel really ashamed till the fright of being found out
in my honourable occupation drove me from it. I slunk away to the
forward end of the poop and lounged about there, my face and ears
burning and glad it was a dark night, expecti