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The End of the Tether by Joseph Conrad
page 11 of 177 (06%)
on a scant allowance of gilt for the ginger-bread scrolls at her stem
and stern.

This necessity opened his eyes to the fundamental changes of the world.
Of his past only the familiar names remained, here and there, but
the things and the men, as he had known them, were gone. The name of
Gardner, Patteson, & Co. was still displayed on the walls of warehouses
by the waterside, on the brass plates and window-panes in the business
quarters of more than one Eastern port, but there was no longer a
Gardner or a Patteson in the firm. There was no longer for Captain
Whalley an arm-chair and a welcome in the private office, with a bit of
business ready to be put in the way of an old friend, for the sake of
bygone services. The husbands of the Gardner girls sat behind the desks
in that room where, long after he had left the employ, he had kept his
right of entrance in the old man's time. Their ships now had yellow
funnels with black tops, and a time-table of appointed routes like a
confounded service of tramways. The winds of December and June were all
one to them; their captains (excellent young men he doubted not) were,
to be sure, familiar with Whalley Island, because of late years the
Government had established a white fixed light on the north end (with
a red danger sector over the Condor Reef), but most of them would have
been extremely surprised to hear that a flesh-and-blood Whalley still
existed--an old man going about the world trying to pick up a cargo here
and there for his little bark.

And everywhere it was the same. Departed the men who would have nodded
appreciatively at the mention of his name, and would have thought
themselves bound in honor to do something for Dare-devil Harry Whalley.
Departed the opportunities which he would have known how to seize; and
gone with them the white-winged flock of clippers that lived in the
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