They would realize, when he was gone, the sort
of man they had lost. The flame of indignation died out again and he sat
moodily pondering the difficulty of commanding an adequate appreciation.
Command! The word stung him to bodily movement. If only he could once
grasp the sceptre, he could defy them all. He would have the whip-hand
then. And there were ways, there were ways of making money. Some he had
heard of on this run were quadrupling their incomes. Archy had whispered
incredible stories of skippers and stewards working together ... working
together. Perhaps it would be worth while to stick to the ship for a
voyage or so, even if he did have to put up with this sort of thing.
They would reach Saloniki in a few hours, and then they would see.

It frequently happens that moods which would logically drive men mad,
moods which seem to have no natural antidote, are broken up and
neutralized by some entirely fortuitous event. It is not too much to say
that Mr. Spokesly's grievances were inducing one of these moods, when
the wholesome activity of affairs on the forecastle-head, the keen
autumn wind blowing across the bony ridges of Chalcidice, and the
professional criticism evoked by the ships outward-bound, blew the foul
vapours away. Captain Meredith, whose reflective and unchallenging blue
eyes were visible between the weather-cloth and the laced peak of his
cap, made a mental note that "the man was doing himself justice." Of
course Captain Meredith did not perceive how very wide of the mark his
sensible phrase led him. Mr. Spokesly always did himself justice. What
he was eternally hunting for, in and out of the maze in which he spent
his life, was justice from others. Captain Meredith did not realize that
a middle-aged man with a grievance is like a man who has been
skinned--to touch him causes the most exquisite agony. Nay, merely to
exist, to permit the orderly march of every-day routine, chafes him to
the verge of hysteria. It was nothing to Mr. Spokesly that he was
serving his country; nothing to him that he was in imminent peril by
mine and torpedo. During the voyage he had scarcely noticed the
occasional formal slips that came from the wireless house informing them
that an enemy submarine was operating in such and such a position, so
many miles ahead or astern as the case might be. Mr. Spokesly had never
seen a submarine and he didn't want to. The whole business of war in his
eyes became a ghastly farce so long