“Is that our passenger?”

“It is,” I yelled.

Her crew had been obviously on the jump.  I could hear them running about.  The modern spirit of haste was loudly vocal in the orders to “Heave away on the cable”—­to “Lower the sideladder,” and in urgent requests to me to “Come along, sir!  We have been delayed three hours for you. . . .  Our time is seven o’clock, you know!”

I stepped on the deck.  I said “No!  I don’t know.”  The spirit of modern hurry was embodied in a thin, long-armed, long-legged man, with a closely clipped gray beard.  His meagre hand was hot and dry.  He declared feverishly: 

“I am hanged if I would have waited another five minutes Harbour-Master or no Harbour-Master.”

“That’s your own business,” I said.  “I didn’t ask you to wait for me.”

“I hope you don’t expect any supper,” he burst out.  “This isn’t a boarding-house afloat.  You are the first passenger I ever had in my life and I hope to goodness you will be the last.”

I made no answer to this hospitable communication; and, indeed, he didn’t wait for any, bolting away on to his bridge to get his ship under way.

The three days he had me on board he did not depart from that half-hostile attitude.  His ship having been delayed three hours on my account he couldn’t forgive me for not being a more distinguished person.  He was not exactly outspoken about it, but that feeling of annoyed wonder was peeping out perpetually in his talk.

He was absurd.

He was also a man of much experience, which he liked to trot out; but no greater contrast with Captain Giles could have been imagined.  He would have amused me if I had wanted to be amused.  But I did not want to be amused.  I was like a lover looking forward to a meeting.  Human hostility was nothing to me.  I thought of my unknown ship.  It was amusement enough, torment enough, occupation enough.

He perceived my state, for his wits were sufficiently sharp for that, and he poked sly fun at my preoccupation in the manner some nasty, cynical old men assume toward the dreams and illusions of youth.  I, on my side, refrained from questioning him as to the appearance of my ship, though I knew that being in Bangkok every fortnight or so he must have known her by sight.  I was not going to expose the ship, my ship! to some slighting reference.

He was the first really unsympathetic man I had ever come in contact with.  My education was far from being finished, though I didn’t know it.  No!  I didn’t know it.

All I knew was that he disliked me and had some contempt for my person.  Why?  Apparently because his ship had been delayed three hours on my account.  Who was I to have such a thing done for me?  Such a thing had never been done for him.  It was a sort of jealous indignation.

My expectation, mingled with fear, was wrought to its highest pitch.  How slow had been the days of the passage and how soon they were over.  One morning, early, we crossed the bar, and while the sun was rising splendidly over the flat spaces of the land we steamed up the innumerable bends, passed under the shadow of the great gilt pagoda, and reached the outskirts of the town.