, while we rolled up
and down the streets, pulling up here and there, the parcels accumulating
round me and the engine in my head gathering more way every minute. The
composure of the people on the pavements was provoking to a degree, and
as to the people in shops, they were benumbed, more than half
frozen--imbecile. Funny how it affects you to be in a peculiar state of
mind: everybody that does not act up to your excitement seems so
confoundedly unfriendly. And my state of mind what with the hurry, the
worry and a growing exultation was peculiar enough. That engine in my
head went round at its top speed hour after hour till eleven at about at
night it let up on me suddenly at the entrance to the Dock before large
iron gates in a dead wall."

* * * * *

These gates were closed and locked. The cabby, after shooting his things
off the roof of his machine into young Powell's arms, drove away leaving
him alone with his sea-chest, a sail cloth bag and a few parcels on the
pavement about his feet. It was a dark, narrow thoroughfare he told us.
A mean row of houses on the other side looked empty: there wasn't the
smallest gleam of light in them. The white-hot glare of a gin palace a
good way off made the intervening piece of the street pitch black. Some
human shapes appearing mysteriously, as if they had sprung up from the
dark ground, shunned the edge of the faint light thrown down by the
gateway lamps. These figures were wary in their movements and perfectly
silent of foot, like beasts of prey slinking about a camp fire. Powell
gathered up his belongings and hovered over them like a hen over her
brood. A gruffly insinuating voice said:

"Let's carry your things in, Capt'in! I've got my pal 'ere."

He was a tall, bony, grey-haired ruffian with a bulldog jaw, in a torn
cotton shirt and moleskin trousers. The shadow of his hobnailed boots
was enormous and coffinlike. His pal, who didn't come up much higher
than his elbow, stepping forward exhibited a pale face with a long
drooping nose and no chin to speak of. He seemed to have just scrambled
out of a dust-bin in a tam-o'shanter cap and a tattered soldier's coat
much too long for him. Being so deadly white he looked like a horrible
dirty invalid in a ragged dressing gown. The coat flapped open in front
and the rest of his apparel consisted of one brace which crossed his
naked, bony chest, and a pair of trousers. He blinked rapidly as if
dazed by the faint