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Next, he unburdened his wrath for the inefficients who had lost the foresail, and sympathized with the sail-makers for the extra work thrown upon them. Then he asked permission to borrow one of my books, and, clinging to my bunk, selected Buchner's _Force and Matter_ from my shelf, carefully wedging the empty space with the doubled magazine I use for that purpose. Still he was loth to depart, and, cudgelling his brains for a pretext, he set up a rambling discourse on River Plate weather. And all the time I kept wondering what was behind it all. At last it came. "By the way, Mr. Pathurst," he remarked, "do you happen to remember how many years ago Mr. Mellaire said it was that he was dismasted and foundered off here?" I caught his drift on the instant. "Eight years ago, wasn't it?" I lied. Mr. Pike let this sink in and slowly digested it, while the _Elsinore_ was guilty of three huge rolls down to port and back again. "Now I wonder what ship was sunk off the Plate eight years ago?" he communed, as if with himself. "I guess I'll have to ask Mr. Mellaire her name. You can search me for all any I can recollect." He thanked me with unwonted elaborateness for _Force and Matter_, of which I knew he would never read a line, and felt his way to the door. Here he hung on for a moment, as if struck by a new and most accidental idea. "Now it wasn't, by any chance, that he said eighteen years ago?" he queried. I shook my head. "Eight years ago," I said. "That's the way I remember it, though why I should remember it at all I don't know. But that is what he said," I went on with increasing confidence. "Eight years ago. I am sure of it." Mr. Pike looked at me ponderingly, and waited until the _Elsinore_ had fairly righted for an instant ere he took his departure down the hall. I think I have followed the working of his mind. I have long since learned that his memory of ships, officers, cargoes, gales, and disasters is remarkable. He is a veritable encyclopaedia of the sea. Also, it is patent that he has equipped himself with Sidney Waltham's history. As yet, he does not dream that Mr. Mellaire is Sidney Waltham, and he is merely wondering if Mr. Mellaire was a ship-mate of Sidney Waltham eighteen years ago in the ship lost off the Plate. In the meantime, I shall never forgive Mr. Mellaire for this slip he has made. He should have been more careful. CHAPTER XXX An abominable night!
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