. His special art consisted in doing with his feet whatever
other people do with their hands.

The first sight of him, of course, was repellent; but in the smoking-room
on deck Frederick had got over his first repulsion and had become
interested in his personality. Yet the situation in which he now beheld
him was so novel, so remarkable, almost to the point of improbability,
that he had difficulty in concealing his amazement. Arthur Stoss was
eating lunch. Since this room was so little used and since a man forced
to handle his knife and fork with his feet could not be permitted to eat
in the public dining-room, they served Arthur Stoss with his meals here.
To the three onlookers it had the value of an artistic performance to see
how the actor managed to manipulate his instruments with his clean, bare
toes--and that despite the pitching of the vessel--meanwhile, in the best
of humour, uttering the wittiest remarks as bite after bite disappeared
down his throat. He began to banter Hahlstroem and Achleitner, sometimes
in rather caustic fashion, while exchanging glances with Frederick, as
if he thought vastly more of him than of the other two men, who soon
withdrew from his attacks to go on deck.

"My name is Stoss."

"Mine, Von Kammacher."

"It's very good of you to keep me company. That Hahlstroem and his
henchman are disgusting. Though I have been an actor for twenty years,
I can't stand the sight of such weedy weaklings, who don't do anything
themselves and exploit their daughters. They have the effect of an emetic
on me. For all that, he plays the great man. He has no talent, so he is
going to boil soup from his daughter's bones. Yet he goes about nose up
in the air. If he sees a dollar in the dirt and somebody of distinction
is looking, he will let it lie. He won't pick it up. There is no denying
he has an attractive appearance. He has the stuff in him for a very
clever, fashionable swindler. But he would rather take it easy and live
off his daughter and his daughter's admirers. It's astonishing how
many people are willing to make asses of themselves. There's that
Achleitner--look at the condescension with which Hahlstroem treats him
and the lofty way Hahlstroem plays the role of benefactor! He used to be
a riding-master. Then he got mixed up in some quack cure, a combination
of Swedish gymnastics and hydrotherapeutics, and his wife left him, a
fine, hard-working woman, now doing splendidly as head of a department