In my wanderings about London from west to east and back again (I was
very idle then) the two little rooms in Fenchurch Street were a sort
of resting-place where my spirit, hankering after the sea, could feel
itself nearer to the ships, the men, and the life of its choice--nearer
there than on any other spot of the solid earth. This resting-place used
to be, at about five o'clock in the afternoon, full of men and tobacco
smoke, but Captain Froud had the smaller room to himself and there
he granted private interviews, whose principal motive was to render
service. Thus, one murky November afternoon he beckoned me in with a
crooked finger and that peculiar glance above his spectacles which is
perhaps my strongest physical recollection of the man.

"I have had in here a shipmaster, this morning," he said, getting back
to his desk and motioning me to a chair, "who is in want of an officer.
It's for a steamship. You know, nothing pleases me more than to be
asked, but, unfortunately, I do not quite see my way . . ."

As the outer room was full of men I cast a wondering glance at the
closed door; but he shook his head.

"Oh, yes, I should be only too glad to get that berth for one of them.
But the fact of the matter is, the captain of that ship wants an officer
who can speak French fluently, and that's not so easy to find. I do
not know anybody myself but you. It's a second officer's berth and, of
course, you would not care . . . would you now? I know that it isn't
what you are looking for."

It was not. I had given myself up to the idleness of a haunted man who
looks for nothing but words wherein to capture his visions. But I admit