a,' he returned with extraordinary bitterness.
'That's all it's likely to be--an idea. I never did have any luck. It's
always the way, somehow. The things you want ... you can't get. And now,
this ... I say, Chief.'

"'Well?'

"'Excuse me, won't you, talking like this. I'm awfully grateful really.
It means a good deal to me, if she only knows I meant to be there. She
said I could--if I liked.'

"'Isn't she playing with you?' I asked, harshly. He put up his hand.

"'No, she's not that sort. She's different from other girls. She's had a
rotten time ... I can't tell you.... It would have been different if she
was coming home with us. Everything seems against me. No matter ... a
chap has to put up with his luck, I suppose.'

"'You'll pick up,' I suggested, without much brilliance I am afraid. He
made no reply, lying with a sort of stern acquiescence in the enigmatic
blows of fate.

"And the next day, when the ore was crashing into the holds and the ship
lay in a red fog of dust, Jack and I went ashore on our business. I
remember Mr. Bloom walking to and fro on the bridge deck with the Second
Mate, nudging him facetiously as they passed the Second, who was rigging
his tackle over the bunker, and nodding toward us as we made our way
among the ore-trucks and down to the beach. The Second had told me that
'the nosey blighter' had been making inquiries about the coal, with sly
innuendoes dusted over his sapient remarks. It was a subject to which
Mr. Bloom's lofty conceptions of 'professional etiquette' would do full
justice. As we climbed the steps which ran up outside Gruenbaum's house,
I was wondering to myself if I should be able to redeem my promise to
young Siddons. There seemed small likelihood of it unless I took Jack
into our confidence. We entered a high stone passage through the farther
end of which we could see Gruenbaum's orchard and Gruenbaum's five
children playing under the trees in the care of a fat Greek woman. We
turned to the left into an immense chamber with a cheap desk and office
chair in one corner. The whitewashed walls were decorated with
oleographs of imaginary Greek steamships, all funnels and bridge, with
towering knife-like prows cleaving the Atlantic at terrific speed. There
were advertisements of Greek and Italian insurance companies, too, and a
battered yellow old map of the Cyclades. And standing at the tall
windows was a figure in a frock coat squinting through a telescope. He
put it down