of the _Ferndale_ was thinking
all the time that I was a relation of yours."

"I was rather concerned about the propriety of it, you know, but Mr.
Powell didn't seem to be in the least.

"Did he?" says he. "That's funny, because it seems to me too that I've
been a sort of good uncle to several of you young fellows lately. Don't
you think so yourself? However, if you don't like it you may put him
right--when you get out to sea." At this I felt a bit queer. Mr. Powell
had rendered me a very good service:- because it's a fact that with us
merchant sailors the first voyage as officer is the real start in life.
He had given me no less than that. I told him warmly that he had done
for me more that day than all my relations put together ever did.

"Oh, no, no," says he. "I guess it's that shipment of explosives waiting
down the river which has done most for you. Forty tons of dynamite have
been your best friend to-day, young man."

"That was true too, perhaps. Anyway I saw clearly enough that I had
nothing to thank myself for. But as I tried to thank him, he checked my
stammering.

"Don't be in a hurry to thank me," says he. "The voyage isn't finished
yet."

Our new acquaintance paused, then added meditatively: "Queer man. As if
it made any difference. Queer man."

"It's certainly unwise to admit any sort of responsibility for our
actions, whose consequences we are never able to foresee," remarked
Marlow by way of assent.

"The consequence of his action was that I got a ship," said the other.
"That could not do much harm," he added with a laugh which argued a
probably unconscious contempt of general ideas.

But Marlow was not put off. He was patient and reflective. He had been
at sea many years and I verily believe he liked sea-life because upon the
whole it is favourable to reflection. I am speaking of the now nearly
vanished sea-life under sail. To those who may be surprised at the
statement I will point out that this life secured for the mind of him who
embraced it the inestimable advantages of solitude and silence. Marlow
had the habit of pursuing general ideas in a peculiar manner, between
jest and earnest.

"Oh, I wouldn't suggest," he said, "that your namesake Mr. Powell, the
Shipping Master, had done you much harm. Such was hardly his intention.
And even if it had been he would not have had the power. He was but a
man, and the incapacity to achieve anything distinctly good or evil is
in