ers on my ship to be referred to as
engineers, not 'workmen.'' Silence, Macedoine looking at the back of his
hand and smiling with the corner of his mouth pulled down.
'_Understand!_' thundered the Old Man, rising from his chair but holding
it by the arms. It was so sudden I nearly collapsed. I thought he was
going to throw Macedoine through the door. That lofty personage was
startled, too. He replied hastily: 'Oh, quite so, Captain, er....' when
old Pomeroy sat down and dipping his pen in the ink, shut him up with
'Then don't forget it, and don't wait.'

"I mention this highly unusual episode for a special reason. It happened
to provide one specific proof of my theory that Macedoine was an artist
in his method of building up that grotesque effigy which he presented
to the world as himself. He was like that eccentric rich person who once
built a most astonishing house in Chelsea many years ago. You remember?
It was called So-and-So's Folly. It stood on a valuable site, and each
story was decorated in a different style. The basement was Ph[oe]nician
and the roof was pure Berlin. But the horrible thing about that house
was, not its bizarre commingling of periods, its terra-cotta tigers and
cast-iron chrysanthemums, but the fact that inside it was a hollow,
spider-haunted shell. There was not even a back to it. There were no
floors laid on the joists, weathered planks blocked up the back, and a
few forlorn green statues stood amid a dank jungle of creepers and grass
and rubbish. Now that was how Macedoine impressed me, and what I was
going to say was that by accident I obtained later a peep into his
studio, so to speak, and saw his method of putting up that marvellous
front, behind which, as you have already learned, there was nothing save
the dreamy dirtiness of avarice and ego-mania. No, the solitary and
grandiose idea in his mind precluded all recollection of individual
humanity. It was not that he forgot us who had been his shipmates. He
had never known us. We had not the wit to be knaves, or the credulity to
accept him at his own colossal valuation. We ignored his enigmatic claim
to greatness, while he passed sublimely along, disdainful of our
obvious virtues. For it is presumable that we _had_ virtues, since the
world--anxious for the replenishing of its larders--hails us nowadays as
heroes because we prefer the dangers of sea-life to the tedious boredom
of a shore-going existence....

"Yes, I saw into his studio, w