huddled beneath it for the purpose of displaying a black-faced clock with
gilt numerals whose mellow chimes have recorded the passing hours for
many generations of Sunwich men.

Regardless of the heat, which indeed was mild compared with that which
raged in his own bosom, Captain Nugent, fresh from the inquiry of the
collision of his ship _Conqueror_ with the German barque _Hans Muller_,
strode rapidly up the High Street in the direction of home. An honest
seafaring smell, compounded of tar, rope, and fish, known to the educated
of Sunwich as ozone, set his thoughts upon the sea. He longed to be
aboard ship again, with the Court of Inquiry to form part of his crew.
In all his fifty years of life he had never met such a collection of
fools. His hard blue eyes blazed as he thought of them, and the mouth
hidden by his well-kept beard was set with anger.

Mr. Samson Wilks, his steward, who had been with him to London to give
evidence, had had a time upon which he looked back in later years with
much satisfaction at his powers of endurance. He was with the captain,
and yet not with him. When they got out of the train at Sunwich he
hesitated as to whether he should follow the captain or leave him. His
excuse for following was the bag, his reason for leaving the volcanic
condition of its owner's temper, coupled with the fact that he appeared
to be sublimely ignorant that the most devoted steward in the world was
tagging faithfully along a yard or two in the rear.

The few passers-by glanced at the couple with interest. Mr. Wilks had
what is called an expressive face, and he had worked his sandy eyebrows,
his weak blue eyes, and large, tremulous mouth into such an expression of
surprise at the finding of the Court, that he had all the appearance of a
beholder of visions. He changed the bag to his other hand as they left