way. She went by perfectly motionless and as if lost in meditation; only
the hem of her skirt stirred in the draught; the sun rays broke on her
sleek tawny hair; that bald-headed ruffian, Nicholas, was whacking her
on the shoulder. I saw his tiny fat arm rise and fall in a workmanlike
manner. And then the four cottage windows of the Diana came into view
retreating swiftly down the river. The sashes were up, and one of the
white calico curtains was fluttered straight out like a streamer above
the agitated water of the wake.

To be thus tricked out of one's turn was an unheard of occurrence. In
my agent's office, where I went to complain at once, they protested with
apologies they couldn't understand how the mistake arose: but Schomberg
when I dropped in later to get some tiffin, though surprised to see me,
was perfectly ready with an explanation. I found him seated at the end
of a long narrow table, facing his wife--a scraggy little woman, with
long ringlets and a blue tooth, who smiled abroad stupidly and looked
frightened when you spoke to her. Between them a waggling punkah fanned
twenty cane-bottomed chairs and two rows of shiny plates. Three
Chinamen in white jackets loafed with napkins in their hands around that
desolation. Schomberg's pet table d'hote was not much of a success that
day. He was feeding himself ferociously and seemed to overflow with
bitterness.

He began by ordering in a brutal voice the chops to be brought back for
me, and turning in his chair: "Mistake they told you? Not a bit of it!
Don't you believe it for a moment, captain! Falk isn't a man to make
mistakes unless on purpose." His firm conviction was that Falk had been
trying all along to curry favour on the cheap with Hermann. "On the
cheap--mind you! It doesn't cost him a cent to put that insult upon you,
and Captain Hermann gets in a day ahead of your ship. Time's money! Eh?