“What do you think?  Is it any use?”

“My goodness!  He has asked for you twice today.”

This emphatic He was the supreme authority, the Marine Superintendent, the Harbour-Master—­a very great person in the eyes of every single quill-driver in the room.  But that was nothing to the opinion he had of his own greatness.

Captain Ellis looked upon himself as a sort of divine (pagan) emanation, the deputy-Neptune for the circumambient seas.  If he did not actually rule the waves, he pretended to rule the fate of the mortals whose lives were cast upon the waters.

This uplifting illusion made him inquisitorial and peremptory.  And as his temperament was choleric there were fellows who were actually afraid of him.  He was redoubtable, not in virtue of his office, but because of his unwarrantable assumptions.  I had never had anything to do with him before.

I said:  “Oh!  He has asked for me twice.  Then perhaps I had better go in.”

“You must!  You must!”

The Shipping-Master led the way with a mincing gait around the whole system of desks to a tall and important-looking door, which he opened with a deferential action of the arm.

He stepped right in (but without letting go of the handle) and, after gazing reverently down the room for a while, beckoned me in by a silent jerk of the head.  Then he slipped out at once and shut the door after me most delicately.

Three lofty windows gave on the harbour.  There was nothing in them but the dark-blue sparkling sea and the paler luminous blue of the sky.  My eye caught in the depths and distances of these blue tones the white speck of some big ship just arrived and about to anchor in the outer roadstead.  A ship from home—­after perhaps ninety days at sea.  There is something touching about a ship coming in from sea and folding her white wings for a rest.

The next thing I saw was the top-knot of silver hair surmounting Captain Ellis’ smooth red face, which would have been apoplectic if it hadn’t had such a fresh appearance.

Our deputy-Neptune had no beard on his chin, and there was no trident to be seen standing in a corner anywhere, like an umbrella.  But his hand was holding a pen—­the official pen, far mightier than the sword in making or marring the fortune of simple toiling men.  He was looking over his shoulder at my advance.

When I had come well within range he saluted me by a nerve-shattering:  “Where have you been all this time?”

As it was no concern of his I did not take the slightest notice of the shot.  I said simply that I had heard there was a master needed for some vessel, and being a sailing-ship man I thought I would apply. . . .

He interrupted me.  “Why!  Hang it! You are the right man for that job—­if there had been twenty others after it.  But no fear of that.  They are all afraid to catch hold.  That’s what’s the matter.”