“That’s a very insulting sort of man,” remarked Captain Giles—­superfluously, I thought.  “Very insulting.  You haven’t offended him in some way, have you?”

“Never spoke to him in my life,” I said grumpily.  “Can’t imagine what he means by competing.  He has been trying for my job after I left—­and didn’t get it.  But that isn’t exactly competition.”

Captain Giles balanced his big benevolent head thoughtfully.  “He didn’t get it,” he repeated very slowly.  “No, not likely either, with Kent.  Kent is no end sorry you left him.  He gives you the name of a good seaman, too.”

I flung away the paper I was still holding.  I sat up, I slapped the table with my open palm.  I wanted to know why he would keep harping on that, my absolutely private affair.  It was exasperating, really.

Captain Giles silenced me by the perfect equanimity of his gaze.  “Nothing to be annoyed about,” he murmured reasonably, with an evident desire to soothe the childish irritation he had aroused.  And he was really a man of an appearance so inoffensive that I tried to explain myself as much as I could.  I told him that I did not want to hear any more about what was past and gone.  It had been very nice while it lasted, but now it was done with I preferred not to talk about it or even think about it.  I had made up my mind to go home.

He listened to the whole tirade in a particular lending-the-ear attitude, as if trying to detect a false note in it somewhere; then straightened himself up and appeared to ponder sagaciously over the matter.

“Yes.  You told me you meant to go home.  Anything in view there?”

Instead of telling him that it was none of his business I said sullenly: 

“Nothing that I know of.”

I had indeed considered that rather blank side of the situation I had created for myself by leaving suddenly my very satisfactory employment.  And I was not very pleased with it.  I had it on the tip of my tongue to say that common sense had nothing to do with my action, and that therefore it didn’t deserve the interest Captain Giles seemed to be taking in it.  But he was puffing at a short wooden pipe now, and looked so guileless, dense, and commonplace, that it seemed hardly worth while to puzzle him either with truth or sarcasm.

He blew a cloud of smoke, then surprised me by a very abrupt:  “Paid your passage money yet?”

Overcome by the shameless pertinacity of a man to whom it was rather difficult to be rude, I replied with exaggerated meekness that I had not done so yet.  I thought there would be plenty of time to do that to-morrow.

And I was about to turn away, withdrawing my privacy from his fatuous, objectless attempts to test what sort of stuff it was made of, when he laid down his pipe in an extremely significant manner, you know, as if a critical moment had come, and leaned sideways over the table between us.

“Oh!  You haven’t yet!” He dropped his voice mysteriously.  “Well, then I think you ought to know that there’s something going on here.”