“Will you taste, messmate?” he asked, and when I had refused, “Well, I’ll take a drain myself, Jim,” said he. “I need a caulker, for there’s trouble on hand. And, talking o’ trouble, why did that doctor give me the chart, Jim?”

My face expressed a wonder so unaffected that he saw the needlessness of further questions.

“Ah, well, he did, though,” said he. “And there’s something under that, no doubt⁠—something, surely, under that, Jim⁠—bad or good.”

And he took another swallow of the brandy, shaking his great fair head like a man who looks forward to the worst.