At this point I was incautious enough to breathe out another "I
see," which gave offence again, and brought on me a rude "No, you
don't"--as before. But in the pause he remembered the glass of
beer at his elbow. He drank half of it, wiped his mustaches, and
remarked grimly -

"Don't you think that there will be any sea life in this, because
there ain't. If you're going to put in any out of your own head,
now's your chance. I suppose you know what ten days of bad weather
in the Channel are like? I don't. Anyway, ten whole days go by.
One Monday Cloete comes to the office a little late--hears a
woman's voice in George's room and looks in. Newspapers on the
desk, on the floor; Captain Harry's wife sitting with red eyes and
a bag on the chair near her. . . Look at this, says George, in
great excitement, showing him a paper. Cloete's heart gives a
jump. Ha! Wreck in Westport Bay. The Sagamore gone ashore early
hours of Sunday, and so the newspaper men had time to put in some
of their work. Columns of it. Lifeboat out twice. Captain and
crew remain by the ship. Tugs summoned to assist. If the weather
improves, this well-known fine ship may yet be saved. . . You know
the way these chaps put it. . . Mrs. Harry there on her way to
catch a train from Cannon Street. Got an hour to wait.

"Cloete takes George aside and whispers: Ship saved yet! Oh,
damn! That must never be; you hear? But George looks at him
dazed, and Mrs. Harry keeps on sobbing quietly: . . . I ought to
have been with him. But I am going to him. . . We are all going
together, cries Cloete, all of a sudden. He rushes out, sends the
woman a cup of hot bovril from the shop across the road, buys a rug
for her, thinks of everything; and in the train tucks her in and