ouples tramped backwards and forwards, keeping
step and balance without effort, in a confined space. Pigs grunted in
the big pigstye. Belfast, leaning thoughtfully on his elbow, above the
bars, communed with them through the silence of his meditation. Fellows
with shirts open wide on sunburnt breasts sat upon the mooring bits,
and all up the steps of the forecastle ladders. By the foremast a
few discussed in a circle the characteristics of a gentleman. One
said:--"It's money as does it." Another maintained:--"No, it's the way
they speak." Lame Knowles stumped up with an unwashed face (he had the
distinction of being the dirty man of the forecastle), and showing a
few yellow fangs in a shrewd smile, explained craftily that he "had seen
some of their pants." The backsides of them--he had observed--were thinner
than paper from constant sitting down in offices, yet otherwise they
looked first-rate and would last for years. It was all appearance. "It
was," he said, "bloomin' easy to be a gentleman when you had a clean
job for life." They disputed endlessly, obstinate and childish; they
repeated in shouts and with inflamed faces their amazing arguments;
while the soft breeze, eddying down the enormous cavity of the foresail,
distended above their bare heads, stirred the tumbled hair with a touch
passing and light like an indulgent caress.

They were forgetting their toil, they were forgetting themselves.
The cook approached to hear, and stood by, beaming with the inward
consciousness of his faith, like a conceited saint unable to forget his
glorious reward; Donkin, solitary and brooding over his wrongs on the
forecastle-head, moved closer to catch the drift of the discussion below
him; he turned his sallow face to the sea, and his thin nostrils moved,
sniffing the breeze, as he lounged negligently by the rail. In the glow
of sunset faces shone with interest, teeth flashed, eyes sparkled. The
walking couples stood still suddenly, with broad grins; a man, bending
over a wash-tub, sat up, entranced, with the soapsuds flecking his wet
arms. Even the three petty officers listened leaning back, comfortably
propped, and with superior smiles. Belfast left off scratching the ear
of his favourite pig, and, open mouthed, tried with eager eyes to have
his say. He lifted his arms, grimacing and baffled. From a distance
Charley screamed at the ring:--"I know about gentlemen more'n any of you.
I've been intermit with 'em.... I've blacked the