profound look. The letter, he continued,
was addressed to the Chief Steward. Now what could Captain Ellis, the
Master Attendant, want to write to the Steward for? The fellow went
every morning, anyhow, to the Harbour Office with his report, for orders
or what not. He hadn't been back more than an hour before there was an
office peon chasing him with a note. Now what was that for?

And he began to speculate. It was not for this--and it could not be for
that. As to that other thing it was unthinkable.

The fatuousness of all this made me stare. If the man had not been
somehow a sympathetic personality I would have resented it like an
insult. As it was, I felt only sorry for him. Something remarkably
earnest in his gaze prevented me from laughing in his face. Neither did
I yawn at him. I just stared.

His tone became a shade more mysterious. Directly the fellow (meaning
the Steward) got that note he rushed for his hat and bolted out of the
house. But it wasn't because the note called him to the Harbour Office.
He didn't go there. He was not absent long enough for that. He came
darting back in no time, flung his hat away, and raced about the dining
room moaning and slapping his forehead. All these exciting facts and
manifestations had been observed by Captain Giles. He had, it seems,
been meditating upon them ever since.

I began to pity him profoundly. And in a tone which I tried to make
as little sarcastic as possible I said that I was glad he had found
something to occupy his morning hours.

With his disarming simplicity he made me observe, as if it were a matter
of some consequence, how strange it was that he should have spent the
morning indoors at all. He generally was out before tiffin, visiting
various offices, seeing his friends in the harbour, and so on. He had
felt out of sorts somewhat on rising. Nothing much. Just enough to make
him feel lazy.

All this with a sustained, holding stare which, in conjunction with
the general inanity of the discourse, conveyed the impression of mild,
dreary lunacy. And when he hitched his chair a little and dropped
his voice to the low note of mystery, it flashed upon me that high
professional reputation was not necessarily a guarantee of sound mind.

It never occurred to me then that I didn't know in what soundness
of mind exactly consisted and what a delicate and, upon the whole,
unimportant matter it was. With some idea of not hurting his feelings I
blinked at him in an