There was no answer, but the voices dropped suddenly.  The head Chinaman went out.  We heard the clink of ice in the glasses, pouring sounds, the shuffling of feet, the scraping of chairs.  Schomberg, after wondering in a low mutter who the devil could be there at this time of the day, got up napkin in hand to peep through the doorway cautiously.  He retreated rapidly on tip-toe, and whispering behind his hand informed me that it was Falk, Falk himself who was in there, and, what’s more, he had Captain Hermann with him.

The return of the tug from the outer Roads was unexpected but possible, for Falk had taken away the Diana at half-past five, and it was now two o’clock.  Schomberg wished me to observe that neither of these men would spend a dollar on a tiffin, which they must have wanted.  But by the time I was ready to leave the dining-room Falk had gone.  I heard the last of his big boots on the planks of the verandah.  Hermann was sitting quite alone in the large, wooden room with the two lifeless billiard tables shrouded in striped covers, mopping his face diligently.  He wore his best go-ashore clothes, a stiff collar, black coat, large white waistcoat, grey trousers.  A white cotton sunshade with a cane handle reposed between his legs, his side whiskers were neatly brushed, his chin had been freshly shaved; and he only distantly resembled the dishevelled and terrified man in a snuffy night shirt and ignoble old trousers I had seen in the morning hanging on to the wheel of the Diana.

He gave a start at my entrance, and addressed me at once in some confusion, but with genuine eagerness.  He was anxious to make it clear he had nothing to do with what he called the “tam pizness” of the morning.  It was most inconvenient.  He had reckoned upon another day up in town to settle his bills and sign certain papers.  There were also some few stores to come, and sundry pieces of “my ironwork,” as he called it quaintly, landed for repairs, had been left behind.  Now he would have to hire a native boat to take all this out to the ship.  It would cost five or six dollars perhaps.  He had had no warning from Falk.  Nothing. . . .  He hit the table with his dumpy fist. . . .  Der verfluchte Kerl came in the morning like a “tam’ ropper,” making a great noise, and took him away.  His mate was not prepared, his ship was moored fast—­he protested it was shameful to come upon a man in that way.  Shameful!  Yet such was the power Falk had on the river that when I suggested in a chilling tone that he might have simply refused to have his ship moved, Hermann was quite startled at the idea.  I never realised so well before that this is an age of steam.  The exclusive possession of a marine boiler had given Falk the whip-hand of us all.  Hermann, recovering, put it to me appealingly that I knew very well how unsafe it was to contradict that fellow.  At this I only smiled distantly.

“Der Kerl!” he cried.  He was sorry he had not refused.  He was indeed.  The damage!  The damage!  What for all that damage!  There was no occasion for damage.  Did I know how much damage he had done?  It gave me a certain satisfaction to tell him that I had heard his old waggon of a ship crack fore and aft as she went by.  “You passed close enough to me,” I added significantly.