print frock she displayed something so commanding in the manifest perfection of her figure that the sun seemed to be rising for her alone.  The flood of light brought out the opulence of her form and the vigour of her youth in a glorifying way.  She went by perfectly motionless and as if lost in meditation; only the hem of her skirt stirred in the draught; the sun rays broke on her sleek tawny hair; that bald-headed ruffian, Nicholas, was whacking her on the shoulder.  I saw his tiny fat arm rise and fall in a workmanlike manner.  And then the four cottage windows of the Diana came into view retreating swiftly down the river.  The sashes were up, and one of the white calico curtains was fluttered straight out like a streamer above the agitated water of the wake.

To be thus tricked out of one’s turn was an unheard of occurrence.  In my agent’s office, where I went to complain at once, they protested with apologies they couldn’t understand how the mistake arose:  but Schomberg when I dropped in later to get some tiffin, though surprised to see me, was perfectly ready with an explanation.  I found him seated at the end of a long narrow table, facing his wife—­a scraggy little woman, with long ringlets and a blue tooth, who smiled abroad stupidly and looked frightened when you spoke to her.  Between them a waggling punkah fanned twenty cane-bottomed chairs and two rows of shiny plates.  Three Chinamen in white jackets loafed with napkins in their hands around that desolation.  Schomberg’s pet table d’hote was not much of a success that day.  He was feeding himself ferociously and seemed to overflow with bitterness.

He began by ordering in a brutal voice the chops to be brought back for me, and turning in his chair:  “Mistake they told you?  Not a bit of it!  Don’t you believe it for a moment, captain!  Falk isn’t a man to make mistakes unless on purpose.”  His firm conviction was that Falk had been trying all along to curry favour on the cheap with Hermann.  “On the cheap—­mind you!  It doesn’t cost him a cent to put that insult upon you, and Captain Hermann gets in a day ahead of your ship.  Time’s money!  Eh?  You are very friendly with Captain Hermann I believe, but a man is bound to be pleased at any little advantage he may get.  Captain Hermann is a good business man, and there’s no such thing as a friend in business.  Is there?” He leaned forward and began to cast stealthy glances as usual.  “But Falk is, and always was, a miserable fellow.  I would despise him.”

I muttered, grumpily, that I had no particular respect for Falk.

“I would despise him,” he insisted, with an appearance of anxiety which would have amused me if I had not been fathoms deep in discontent.  To a young man fairly conscientious and as well-meaning as only the young man can be, the current ill-usage of life comes with a peculiar cruelty.  Youth that is fresh enough to believe in guilt, in innocence, and in itself, will always doubt whether it have not perchance deserved its fate.  Sombre of mind and without appetite, I struggled with the chop while Mrs. Schomberg sat with her everlasting stupid grin and Schomberg’s talk gathered way like a slide of rubbish.