ship to see that all ports and doors were screened. His feet hurt him.
And it seemed to him that his mind hurt him in very much the same way.
He was in a mood which people like the London School of Mnemonics dread
and deprecate more than anything else, a mood which renders suddenly
valueless millions of dollars' worth of advertising, which empties
theatres and leaves the purveyors of commodities with warehouses crammed
with moribund stock. He was suspicious. He had suddenly perceived in a
dim way the complete and humorous fallacy of trying to become somebody
else through the mails. It did not present itself to him in this form.
He was not clever enough to get anything so clear as that. The London
School of Mnemonics prospered exclusively upon people who lacked the
power of coherent thought. But he had become suspicious. He had lost
faith, not in himself, but in the resources of ultra-modern advertising.
He was beginning to wonder what Mr. Dainopoulos would say to the theory
of Intensive Excogitation. Mr. Spokesly did not realize it, of course,
but the mere fact that he was losing faith in the London School of
Mnemonics was evidence of his progress in life. So much Evanthia Solaris
had already done for him. She had induced in him a certain contempt and
cantankerous suspicion of life. He saw himself with appalling clearness
as the mate of a transport, quarrelling with dirty, insolent engineers
who could not be induced to blind the scuttles of their cabins properly.
And as he came back from the forecastle he heard Captain Meredith's
quiet voice. The captain wanted the fall of the big steel boom made more
secure. This boom was kept up against the mast, since it was too long to
lay down. Mr. Spokesly blew his whistle. The bosun and a couple of
seamen came out and began bending the heavy fall about the bollards near
the standing rigging. Then they hauled on the guys which brought the
boom hard up against the mast, and it appeared from the silence of the
commander that he was satisfied. That, thought Mr. Spokesly, was what
you had to put up with. He himself had sent a man up to the crosstrees
hours ago to make fast the head of the boom. The man had not mentioned
the fact that the dead-eye was loose up there, for the reason that he
was a young chap and did not notice it. While the guys held the boom up
he had slipped the pin into place and climbed down. And this was what
one had to put up with. Impossible to give satisfaction. Day