particularly foolish kind, and his devotion--if it was devotion and
not mere cussedness as I came to regard it before long--inspired
him with a zeal to minimise my loss as much as possible. Oh, yes!
He took care of those infamous potatoes with a vengeance, as the
saying goes.

Everlastingly, there was a tackle over the after-hatch and
everlastingly the watch on deck were pulling up, spreading out,
picking over, rebagging, and lowering down again, some part of that
lot of potatoes. My bargain with all its remotest associations,
mental and visual--the garden of flowers and scents, the girl with
her provoking contempt and her tragic loneliness of a hopeless
castaway--was everlastingly dangled before my eyes, for thousands
of miles along the open sea. And as if by a satanic refinement of
irony it was accompanied by a most awful smell. Whiffs from
decaying potatoes pursued me on the poop, they mingled with my
thoughts, with my food, poisoned my very dreams. They made an
atmosphere of corruption for the ship.

I remonstrated with Mr. Burns about this excessive care. I would
have been well content to batten the hatch down and let them perish
under the deck.

That perhaps would have been unsafe. The horrid emanations might
have flavoured the cargo of sugar. They seemed strong enough to
taint the very ironwork. In addition Mr. Burns made it a personal
matter. He assured me he knew how to treat a cargo of potatoes at
sea--had been in the trade as a boy, he said. He meant to make my
loss as small as possible. What between his devotion--it must have
been devotion--and his vanity, I positively dared not give him the