art from that
half-hostile attitude. His ship having been delayed three hours on
my account he couldn't forgive me for not being a more distinguished
person. He was not exactly outspoken about it, but that feeling of
annoyed wonder was peeping out perpetually in his talk.

He was absurd.

He was also a man of much experience, which he liked to trot out; but no
greater contrast with Captain Giles could have been imagined. He would
have amused me if I had wanted to be amused. But I did not want to be
amused. I was like a lover looking forward to a meeting. Human hostility
was nothing to me. I thought of my unknown ship. It was amusement
enough, torment enough, occupation enough.

He perceived my state, for his wits were sufficiently sharp for that,
and he poked sly fun at my preoccupation in the manner some nasty,
cynical old men assume toward the dreams and illusions of youth. I, on
my side, refrained from questioning him as to the appearance of my ship,
though I knew that being in Bangkok every fortnight or so he must have
known her by sight. I was not going to expose the ship, my ship! to some
slighting reference.

He was the first really unsympathetic man I had ever come in contact
with. My education was far from being finished, though I didn't know it.
No! I didn't know it.

All I knew was that he disliked me and had some contempt for my person.
Why? Apparently because his ship had been delayed three hours on my
account. Who was I to have such a thing done for me? Such a thing had
never been done for him. It was a sort of jealous indignation.

My expectation, mingled with fear, was wrought to its highest pitch. How
slow had been the days of the passage and how soon they were over.
One morning, early, we crossed the bar, and while the sun was
rising splendidly over the flat spaces of the land we steamed up the
innumerable bends, passed under the shadow of the great gilt pagoda, and
reached the outskirts of the town.

There it was, spread largely on both banks, the Oriental capital which
had as yet suffered no white conqueror; an expanse of brown houses of
bamboo, of mats, of leaves, of a vegetable-matter style of architecture,
sprung out of the brown soil on the banks of the muddy river. It was
amazing to think that in those miles of human habitations there was not
probably half a dozen pounds of nails. Some of those houses of sticks
and grass, like the nests of an aquatic race, clung to the low shores.
Other