in my sea life when I served
shipowners who have remained completely shadowy to my apprehension. I
do not mean this for the well-known firm of London ship-brokers which
had chartered the ship to the, I will not say short-lived, but ephemeral
Franco-Canadian Transport Company. A death leaves something behind, but
there was never anything tangible left from the F.C.T.C. It flourished
no longer than roses live, and unlike the roses it blossomed in the dead
of winter, emitted a sort of faint perfume of adventure and died
before spring set in. But indubitably it was a company, it had even a
house-flag, all white with the letters F.C.T.C. artfully tangled up in
a complicated monogram. We flew it at our main-mast head, and now I
have come to the conclusion that it was the only flag of its kind in
existence. All the same we on board, for many days, had the impression
of being a unit of a large fleet with fortnightly departures for
Montreal and Quebec as advertised in pamphlets and prospectuses which
came aboard in a large package in Victoria Dock, London, just before we
started for Rouen, France. And in the shadowy life of the F.C.T.C. lies
the secret of that, my last employment in my calling, which in a remote
sense interrupted the rhythmical development of Nina Almayer's story.

The then secretary of the London Shipmasters' Society, with its modest
rooms in Fenchurch Street, was a man of indefatigable activity and the
greatest devotion to his task. He is responsible for what was my last
association with a ship. I call it that because it can hardly be called
a seagoing experience. Dear Captain Froud--it is impossible not to
pay him the tribute of affectionate familiarity at this distance of
years--had very sound views as to the advancement of knowledge and
status for the whole body of the officers of the mercantile marine. He
organised for us courses of professional lectures, St. John ambulance
classes, corresponded industriously with public bodies and members of
Parliament on subjects touching the interests of the service; and as to
the oncoming of some inquiry or commission relating to matters of the
sea and to the work of seamen, it was a perfect godsend to his need of
exerting himself on our corporate behalf. Together with this high sense
of his official duties he had in him a vein of personal kindness, a
strong disposition to do what good he could to the individual members of
that craft of which in his time he had been a v