h; but you have not been to
sea as long as I have. Such things are possible at sea. I have had a
second engineer from Sunderland, a chap named Philip, who claimed Philip
of Spain as his ancestor. There was Captain Gizzard, in my old London
employ, who had a genealogical tree which traced the old fraud's descent
from the Guiscards of Sicily. No! Captain Macedoine's illusions are
common enough, I fancy, among men. It was only that instead of trying to
master them and clear them away, he cultivated them until they grew to
monstrous proportions and he lost sight of reality altogether. Or if you
like, he was an artist, working upon himself as material, like those old
masters we read about who devoted their lives to the accomplishment of
obscure technical excellences that only the _cognoscenti_ could discover
and enjoy."

"Possibly," murmured the Surgeon, smiling in the darkness of the
evening.

"Well," said Mr. Spenlove, in a musing tone, "of course a certain
latitude of analogy is permitted in describing one man to another, if we
ever can describe him. That was how Macedoine struck me. The aim of his
art was to conceal the artist, which I understand is sound aesthetics.
And it was impossible not to admire his method, his style, if you like.
There was nothing crude in it. So far from leaving nothing to chance, he
left everything to chance. Take the case of his daughter. The brat in
those days was a god-send to him. I used to think she was merely an
invention, he was so circumstantial in his subtly shaded allusions. You
might say that if she hadn't existed, the trend of his emotional
development, the scheme on which he was engaged, would have compelled
him to invent her. As I say, I did believe at one time he had invented
her, for he was always inventing something. In some bewildering,
indefinable way, we became aware, week by week, month by month, of a
fresh touch, a new phase of Captain Macedoine. I don't pretend to know
what final frame he proposed to give to the magnificent picture he was
making. Perhaps he didn't know himself. Perhaps he had no ultimate
design. Anyhow we never had it, for as I said, the company was absorbed
and we all had to come home.

"I admit I was surprised enough when I found out, quite accidentally,
that he had married an octaroon. When I say married, I mean of course,
as far as fidelity and maintenance was concerned. He rented a cottage
out on Tchoupitoulas Street, where the mosquitoes sing lou