argument. The mate of the Cicero was seeing his friend on board.
They would continue their senseless and muddled discourse in tones
of profound friendship for half an hour or so at the shore end of
our gangway, and then I would hear Mr. B- insisting that he must
see the other on board his ship. And away they would go, their
voices, still conversing with excessive amity, being heard moving
all round the harbour. It happened more than once that they would
thus perambulate three or four times the distance, each seeing the
other on board his ship out of pure and disinterested affection.
Then, through sheer weariness, or perhaps in a moment of
forgetfulness, they would manage to part from each other somehow,
and by-and-by the planks of our long gangway would bend and creak
under the weight of Mr. B- coming on board for good at last.

On the rail his burly form would stop and stand swaying.

"Watchman!"

"Sir."

A pause.

He waited for a moment of steadiness before negotiating the three
steps of the inside ladder from rail to deck; and the watchman,
taught by experience, would forbear offering help which would be
received as an insult at that particular stage of the mate's
return. But many times I trembled for his neck. He was a heavy
man.

Then with a rush and a thump it would be done. He never had to