skipper simply broke out the
Red Ensign, showed his codeflags, and went ahead. War? We hadn't any
conception of what the word meant. Our troops were always walloping some
tribe or other in India and so forth, and we lived in a peaceful,
orderly world.

"But Captain Macedoine's remark that war might break out at any time had
something, intangible if you like, to corroborate it. It was in the air.
It was very evident in that crowded cafe when the robust gentleman in
the frock coat and fez and wearing a silver star was working his hearers
up to a hoarse, guttural frenzy about something--probably our old friend
Liberty. There was a destroyer in the harbour near us--a dingy-looking
and obsolete craft with low, sullen funnels and a disagreeable array of
torpedo-tubes with the fat snouts of torpedoes lurking under the hoods.
In those days a war-ship of any sort made one think all sorts of chaotic
thoughts. And now he had mentioned it to me, a good many other things
came to mind which pointed toward some readjustment of power. Our sudden
charter for Saloniki, for example, breaking in on our pleasant, regular
jog-trot trip to keep the great mills of northern Italy going. Yes, I
believed him in spite of my prejudice, and I showed it by taking my
leave with a certain degree of haste and starting for the ship. We
always do that. It is our idea of safety--to get back to the ship. Habit
and duty constrain us. But I had to be shown the way. It was a dark,
moonless night and I had very little notion how to proceed. We bade
Captain Macedoine good-night and he immediately assumed the manner of an
aged ecclesiastic. He became much older. I don't know whether you will
get just what I mean, but the mere fact that he was holding the centre
of the stage, that we were all looking at him and listening to him and
thinking about him, had seemed to inform him with an actual access of
vitality. But when I started from my motionless pose in the background
and scraped my chair and muttered something about having to get back to
the ship, he seemed to fade. He looked at me for an instant in an
attentive and perplexed fashion, as though he could hardly account for
my presence.

"'I never cared for the sea,' he murmured. 'A preposterous life. All the
disadvantages of being in jail with--what was it? Something or other ...
I forget ... well, you must come again. Always pleased, you know....'

"And then, outside, Mrs. Sarafov insisted that I would lose m