"He kept you, sir, just under three hours. I don't think this ever
happened with any of the gentlemen before."

It was only when I got out of the building that I began to walk on
air. And the human animal being averse from change and timid before the
unknown, I said to myself that I would not mind really being examined
by the same man on a future occasion. But when the time of ordeal
came round again the doorkeeper let me into another room, with the
now familiar paraphernalia of models of ships and tackle, a board for
signals on the wall, a big long table covered with official forms,
and having an unrigged mast fixed to the edge. The solitary tenant
was unknown to me by sight, though not by reputation, which was simply
execrable. Short and sturdy as far as I could judge, clad in an old,
brown, morning-suit, he sat leaning on his elbow, his hand shading his
eyes, and half averted from the chair I was to occupy on the other side
of the table. He was motionless, mysterious, remote, enigmatical, with
something mournful too in the pose, like that statue of Giuliano (I
think) de' Medici shading his face on the tomb by Michael Angelo,
though, of course, he was far, far from being beautiful. He began by
trying to make me talk nonsense. But I had been warned of that fiendish
trait, and contradicted him with great assurance. After a while he left
off. So far good. But his immobility, the thick elbow on the table, the
abrupt, unhappy voice, the shaded and averted face grew more and more
impressive. He kept inscrutably silent for a moment, and then, placing
me in a ship of a certain size, at sea, under certain conditions of
weather, season, locality, &c. &c.--all very clear and precise--ordered
me to execute a certain manoeuvre. Before I was half through with it he
did some material damage to the ship. Directly I had grappled with the
difficulty he caused another to present itself, and when that too