I began to pity him profoundly.And in a tone which I tried to make as little sarcastic as possible I said that I was glad he had found something to occupy his morning hours.
With his disarming simplicity he made me ob-serve, as if it were a matter of some consequence, how strange it was that he should have spent the morning indoors at all.He generally was out before tiffin, visiting various offices, seeing his friends in the harbour, and so on.He had felt out of sorts somewhat on rising.Nothing much.
Just enough to make him feel lazy.
All this with a sustained, holding stare which, in conjunction with the general inanity of the discourse, conveyed the impression of mild, dreary lunacy.And when he hitched his chair a little and dropped his voice to the low note of mystery, it flashed upon me that high professional reputa-tion was not necessarily a guarantee of sound mind.
It never occurred to me then that I didn't know in what soundness of mind exactly con-sisted and what a delicate and, upon the whole, unimportant matter it was.With some idea of not hurting his feelings I blinked at him in an interested manner.But when he proceeded to ask me mysteriously whether I remembered what had passed just now between that Steward of ours and "that man Hamilton," I only grunted sourly assent and turned away my head.
"Aye.But do you remember every word?" he insisted tactfully.
"I don't know.It's none of my business," Isnapped out, consigning, moreover, the Steward and Hamilton aloud to eternal perdition.
I meant to be very energetic and final, but Captain Giles continued to gaze at me thought-fully.Nothing could stop him.He went on to point out that my personality was involved in that conversation.When I tried to preserve the semblance of unconcern he became positively cruel.I heard what the man had said? Yes?
What did I think of it then?--he wanted to know.
Captain Giles' appearance excluding the sus-picion of mere sly malice, I came to the conclusion that he was simply the most tactless idiot on earth.
I almost despised myself for the weakness of attempting to enlighten his common understand-ing.I started to explain that I did not think anything whatever.Hamilton was not worth a thought.What such an offensive loafer...
"Aye! that he is," interjected Captain Giles...thought or said was below any decent man's contempt, and I did not propose to take the slightest notice of it.
This attitude seemed to me so simple and ob-vious that I was really astonished at Giles giving no sign of assent.Such perfect stupidity was almost interesting.
"What would you like me to do?" I asked, laughing."I can't start a row with him because of the opinion he has formed of me.Of course, I've heard of the contemptuous way he alludes to me.But he doesn't intrude his contempt on my notice.He has never expressed it in my hearing.For even just now he didn't know we could hear him.I should only make myself ridiculous."That hopeless Giles went on puffing at his pipe moodily.All at once his face cleared, and he spoke.
"You missed my point."
"Have I? I am very glad to hear it," I said.
With increasing animation he stated again that I had missed his point.Entirely.And in a tone of growing self-conscious complacency he told me that few things escaped his attention, and he was rather used to think them out, and generally from his experience of life and men ar-rived at the right conclusion.
This bit of self-praise, of course, fitted excel-lently the laborious inanity of the whole conversa-tion.The whole thing strengthened in me that obscure feeling of life being but a waste of days, which, half-unconsciously, had driven me out of a comfortable berth, away from men I liked, to flee from the menace of emptiness...and to find inanity at the first turn.Here was a man of recognized character and achievement disclosed as an absurd and dreary chatterer.And it was probably like this everywhere--from east to west, from the bottom to the top of the social scale.
A great discouragement fell on me.A spiritual drowsiness.Giles' voice was going on compla-cently; the very voice of the universal hollow conceit.And I was no longer angry with it.
There was nothing original, nothing new, star-tling, informing, to expect from the world; no op-portunities to find out something about oneself, no wisdom to acquire, no fun to enjoy.Every-thing was stupid and overrated, even as Captain Giles was.So be it.
The name of Hamilton suddenly caught my ear and roused me up.
"I thought we had done with him," I said, with the greatest possible distaste.
"Yes.But considering what we happened to hear just now I think you ought to do it.""Ought to do it?" I sat up bewildered."Do what?"Captain Giles confronted me very much sur-prised.
"Why! Do what I have been advising you to try.You go and ask the Steward what was there in that letter from the Harbour Office.Ask him straight out."I remained speechless for a time.Here was something unexpected and original enough to be altogether incomprehensible.I murmured, as-tounded:
"But I thought it was Hamilton that you...""Exactly.Don't you let him.You do what Itell you.You tackle that Steward.You'll make him jump, I bet," insisted Captain Giles, waving his smouldering pipe impressively at me.Then he took three rapid puffs at it.
His aspect of triumphant acuteness was inde-scribable.Yet the man remained a strangely sympathetic creature.Benevolence radiated from him ridiculously, mildly, impressively.It was irritating, too.But I pointed out coldly, as one who deals with the incomprehensible, that Ididn't see any reason to expose myself to a snub from the fellow.He was a very unsatisfactory steward and a miserable wretch besides, but Iwould just as soon think of tweaking his nose.
