a pair of sea-boots. I'll have----"

"You will," said McMunn, "and you'll look like a play actor. It's just
what I'm complaining of."

II

_The McMunn Brothers_ lay, with steam up, at a single anchor a mile
below the Hamburg quays. The yellow, turbid waters of the Elbe swept
past her sides. Below her stretched the long waterway which leads to
the North Sea. The lights of the buoys which marked the channel twinkled
dimly in the gloom of the summer evening. Shafts of brighter light swept
across and across the water from occulting beacons set at long intervals
among buoys. Above the steamer lay a large Norwegian barque waiting for
her pilot to take her down on the ebb tide. Below _The McMunn Brothers_
was an ocean-going tramp steamer. One of her crew sat on the forecastle
playing the "Swanee River" on a melodeon.

McMunn, Ginty, and Lord Dunseverick were together in the cabin of _The
McMunn Brothers_. McMunn, dressed precisely as he always dressed in his
office, sat bolt upright on the cabin sofa. In front of him on the table
were some papers, which he turned over and looked at from time to time.

Beside him was Ginty, in his shirt sleeves, with his peaked cap pushed
far back on his head. He sat with his elbows on the table. His chin,
thrust forward, rested on his knuckles. He stared fixedly at the
panelling on the opposite wall of the cabin. Lord Dunseverick, who had
a side of the table to himself, leaned far back. His legs were stretched
out straight in front of him. His hands were in his pockets. He gazed
wearily at the small lamp which swung from the cabin roof.

For a long time no one spoke. It was Lord Dunseverick who broke the
silence in the end. He took his cigarette-case from his pocket.

"You may say what you like about tobacco, McMunn," he said, "but it's a
comfort to a man when he has no company but a bear with a sore head."

"Ay," said McMunn, "you'll smoke and you'll smoke, but you'll no make me
any easier in my mind by smoking."

Ginty drew a plug of black tobacco from his pocket, and began cutting
shreds from it with a clasp knife. He was apparently of opinion that
smoking would relieve the strain on _his_ mind.

"I'm no satisfied," said McMunn.

"I don't see what you have to grumble about," said Lord Dunseverick.
"We've got what we came for, and we've got our clearance papers. What
more do you want? You expected trouble about those papers, and there
wasn't any. You ought to be pleased."