oo. But
when I turned to look at him he was no longer there. He had rushed away
somewhere out of sight. This sudden disappearance made me laugh.

This was the end of the incident--for me. Captain Giles, however,
staring at the place where the Steward had been, began to haul at his
gorgeous gold chain till at last the watch came up from the deep pocket
like solid truth from a well. Solemnly he lowered it down again and only
then said:

"Just three o'clock. You will be in time--if you don't lose any, that
is."

"In time for what?" I asked.

"Good Lord! For the Harbour Office. This must be looked into."

Strictly speaking, he was right. But I've never had much taste for
investigation, for showing people up and all that no doubt ethically
meritorious kind of work. And my view of the episode was purely ethical.
If any one had to be the death of the Steward I didn't see why it
shouldn't be Captain Giles himself, a man of age and standing, and a
permanent resident. Whereas, I in comparison, felt myself a mere bird
of passage in that port. In fact, it might have been said that I had
already broken off my connection. I muttered that I didn't think--it was
nothing to me. . . .

"Nothing!" repeated Captain Giles, giving some signs of quiet,
deliberate indignation. "Kent warned me you were a peculiar young
fellow. You will tell me next that a command is nothing to you--and
after all the trouble I've taken, too!"

"The trouble!" I murmured, uncomprehending. What trouble? All I could
remember was being mystified and bored by his conversation for a solid
hour after tiffin. And he called that taking a lot of trouble.

He was looking at me with a self-complacency which would have been
odious in any other man. All at once, as if a page of a book had been
turned over disclosing a word which made plain all that had gone before,
I perceived that this matter had also another than an ethical aspect.

And still I did not move. Captain Giles lost his patience a little. With
an angry puff at his pipe he turned his back on my hesitation.

But it was not hesitation on my part. I had been, if I may express
myself so, put out of gear mentally. But as soon as I had convinced
myself that this stale, unprofitable world of my discontent contained
such a thing as a command to be seized, I recovered my powers of
locomotion.

It's a good step from the Officers' Home to the Harbour Office; but with
the magic word "Command" in my head I found m