age and station. It asserted itself in Captain Ellis'
voice.

"Good-bye--and good luck to you," he said so heartily that I could only
give him a grateful glance. Then I turned and went out, never to see him
again in my life. I had not made three steps into the outer office when
I heard behind my back a gruff, loud, authoritative voice, the voice of
our deputy-Neptune.

It was addressing the head Shipping-Master who, having let me in, had,
apparently, remained hovering in the middle distance ever since. "Mr. R.,
let the harbour launch have steam up to take the captain here on board
the Melita at half-past nine to-night."

I was amazed at the startled alacrity of R's "Yes, sir." He ran before
me out on the landing. My new dignity sat yet so lightly on me that
I was not aware that it was I, the Captain, the object of this last
graciousness. It seemed as if all of a sudden a pair of wings had grown
on my shoulders. I merely skimmed along the polished floor.

But R. was impressed.

"I say!" he exclaimed on the landing, while the Malay crew of the
steam-launch standing by looked stonily at the man for whom they were
going to be kept on duty so late, away from their gambling, from their
girls, or their pure domestic joys. "I say! His own launch. What have
you done to him?"

His stare was full of respectful curiosity. I was quite confounded.

"Was it for me? I hadn't the slightest notion," I stammered out.

He nodded many times. "Yes. And the last person who had it before you
was a Duke. So, there!"

I think he expected me to faint on the spot. But I was in too much of a
hurry for emotional displays. My feelings were already in such a whirl
that this staggering information did not seem to make the slightest
difference. It merely fell into the seething cauldron of my brain, and
I carried it off with me after a short but effusive passage of
leave-taking with R.

The favour of the great throws an aureole round the fortunate object of
its selection. That excellent man enquired whether he could do anything
for me. He had known me only by sight, and he was well aware he would
never see me again; I was, in common with the other seamen of the port,
merely a subject for official writing, filling up of forms with all the
artificial superiority of a man of pen and ink to the men who grapple
with realities outside the consecrated walls of official buildings. What
ghosts we must have been to him! Mere symbols to juggle with in