me quite close to the ship's side and raised a harassed
countenance, round and flat, with that curl of black hair over the
forehead and a heavy, pained glance.

"Good morning."

"Good morning."

He looked hard at me: I was a new face, having just replaced the chief
mate he was accustomed to see; and I think that this novelty inspired
him, as things generally did, with deep-seated mistrust.

"Didn't expect you in till this evening," he remarked suspiciously.

I don't know why he should have been aggrieved, but he seemed to be.
I took pains to explain to him that having picked up the beacon at the
mouth of the river just before dark and the tide serving, Captain C--
was enabled to cross the bar and there was nothing to prevent him going
up river at night.

"Captain C-- knows this river like his own pocket," I concluded
discursively, trying to get on terms.

"Better," said Almayer.

Leaning over the rail of the bridge I looked at Almayer, who looked down
at the wharf in aggrieved thought. He shuffled his feet a little; he
wore straw slippers with thick soles. The morning fog had thickened
considerably. Everything round us dripped: the derricks, the rails,
every single rope in the ship--as if a fit of crying had come upon the
universe.

Almayer again raised his head and in the accents of a man accustomed to
the buffets of evil fortune asked hardly audibly:

"I suppose you haven't got such a thing as a pony on board?"

I told him almost in a whisper, for he attuned my communications to his
minor key, that we had such a thing as a pony, and I hinted, as gently
as I could, that he was confoundedly in the way too. I was very anxious
to have him landed before I began to handle the cargo. Almayer remained
looking up at me for a long while with incredulous and melancholy
eyes as though it were not a safe thing to believe my statement. This
pathetic mistrust in the favourable issue of any sort of affair touched
me deeply, and I added:

"He doesn't seem a bit the worse for the passage. He's a nice pony too."

Almayer was not to be cheered up; for all answer he cleared his throat
and looked down again at his feet. I tried to close with him on another
tack.

"By Jove!" I said. "Aren't you afraid of catching pneumonia or
bronchitis or something, walking about in a singlet in such a wet fog?"

He was not to be propitiated by a show of interest in his health. His
answer was a sinister "No fear," as much as to say that