, though, obviously,
they had never seen anything of the sort before. Their faces as they
went ashore wore a cheerfully inconclusive expression. Notwithstanding
that this inspecting ceremony was supposed to be a preliminary to
immediate sailing, it was then, as they filed down our gangway, that I
received the inward monition that no sailing within the meaning of our
charter-party would ever take place.

It must be said that in less than three weeks a move took place. When we
first arrived we had been taken up with much ceremony well towards the
centre of the town, and, all the street corners being placarded with
the tricolour posters announcing the birth of our company, the petit
bourgeois with his wife and family made a Sunday holiday from the
inspection of the ship. I was always in evidence in my best uniform to
give information as though I had been a Cook's tourists' interpreter,
while our quarter-masters reaped a harvest of small change from
personally conducted parties. But when the move was made--that move
which carried us some mile and a half down the stream to be tied up to
an altogether muddier and shabbier quay--then indeed the desolation of
solitude became our lot. It was a complete and soundless stagnation;
for, as we had the ship ready for sea to the smallest detail, as the
frost was hard and the days short, we were absolutely idle--idle to the
point of blushing with shame when the thought struck us that all the
time our salaries went on. Young Cole was aggrieved because, as he said,
we could not enjoy any sort of fun in the evening after loafing like
this all day: even the banjo lost its charm since there was nothing to
prevent his strumming on it all the time between the meals. The good
Paramor--he was really a most excellent fellow--became unhappy as far as
was possible to his cheery nature, till one dreary day I suggested, out
of sheer mischief, that he should employ the dormant energies of the
crew in hauling both cables up on deck and turning them end for end.

For a moment Mr. Paramor was radiant. "Excellent idea!" but directly his
face fell. "Why . . . Yes! But we can't make that job last more than three
days," he muttered discontentedly. I don't know how long he expected
us to be stuck on the riverside outskirts of Rouen, but I know that
the cables got hauled up and turned end for end according to my satanic
suggestion, put down again, and their very existence utterly forgotten,
I believe, before