ath below. In
darkness, of course. The lieutenant of the Anglo-Hellenic Development
Company had adopted an extremely truculent attitude. He did not allow,
he said, people from the ship to seek interviews in that clandestine
manner. Ordered young Siddons to depart. Which, of course, an Englishman
couldn't tolerate from a beastly dago. Punched his head. M. Nikitos,
familiar with the terrain, had flung a piece of rock, and young Siddons,
stepping back quickly in the first agony of the blow, had fallen over
the edge, where I had found him. This was illuminating. It explained a
number of obscure points which had puzzled me. I wondered, as I heard
it, whether the recital of this feat to Captain Macedoine and his
daughter had made any difference in the latter's attitude toward the
victor. She had not regarded him with any enthusiasm when I had talked
with her on the cliff, I noticed. I wondered. For you must be prepared
to hear that I was tremendously preoccupied with thoughts of her at that
time. That is one of the inestimable privileges of being a mere super in
the play. You haven't much to do and you can let your mind dwell upon
the destiny of the leading lady. You can almost call it a hobby of mine,
to dwell upon the fortunes of the men and women who pass across the
great stage on which I have an obscure coign of vantage. Some prefer to
find their interest in novels. They brood in secret upon the erotic
exhalations which rise from the Temple of Art. But I am not much of a
reader, and I prefer the larger freedom of individual choice.
"And there was much in young Siddons which helped me to visualize the
personality which had suddenly irradiated his soul. Of course he was
English, with all the disabilities of his race to express emotion. But
the need for sympathy triumphed over these, and he would come along to
my room in the dog-watch when I learned something of the tremendous
experience which had befallen him. The Second Engineer, who had
apparently suffered very slightly indeed, for I saw him in Renfield
Street one night with two young ladies on his way to the theatre,
assumed an air of dry detachment when he noticed these visits. The
Chief, I heard him growling to the Third one day when he thought I was
out of earshot, was nursing the mates nowadays. I knew the Second
disapproved of friendship on principle. His ideal was to be more or less
at loggerheads with everybody. He would wait until you had made some
ordinary huma
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