"Oh, yes, I did," he interrupted. "And, by the way, we shall have to talk about her—or, rather, about what I ought to do.… Yes, I know what you'll be advising. 'Go straight to Lloyd's,' no doubt."
"Man alive," said I, "why not? If you were aboard of her—and if, as you tell me, you fetched somehow to Sydney—why in God's name hasn't Lloyd's heard of it months ago? There are such things as cables. … Unless, to be sure, you have a reason?"
"I have and I haven't," said Jack. "My turning-up doesn't hurt anyone, does it? The Eurotas went down, sure enough: and I didn't scuttle her, if that's what you suspect."
"Please don't be an ass, Jack," I pleaded.
"Well, I don't see," he continued, ruminating, "—I don't see any way but to go to Lloyd's and tell them about it. Yet equally I don't see what good it can do. The underwriters have paid up, eh?"
"More than three years ago," I told him.
"Well, then… I was perfectly well prepared to answer any questions at Valparaiso. I landed in my own name. I went back to the same hotel. And 'Foe' is not the most common of names, especially when you write 'Doctor' before it.… No, I'm wrong. Farrell had entered our names on the register, and had entered mine as 'Professor.' On my return I wrote it 'John Foe, M.D.' But anyway, not a soul in the hotel recognised me.… I think my looks must have altered, somehow.… So I let it go. I dare say you won't understand, not knowing the kind of experiences I've been through, nor the number of 'em. But you may understand that after a goodish while as a castaway I was tired beyond the point of answering more questions than I should happen to be asked.… So I gave Valparaiso a silent blessing, and came home by the first ship, to consult you and Collingwood. What—let me repeat—have you done with Collingwood?"
"Jimmy?" said I. "He's married, a year since, and is already the father of a bouncing boy. I acted as his best man, by request. He has a delightful and tiny wife who keeps him in order, which he passes on to the County of Warwickshire as Justice of the Peace and Coram.… But about the Eurotas?" I persisted. "I don't think you quite realise. There were passengers on board: and for months—"
"Of course there were passengers," Foe agreed. "It won't help their relatives (will it?) to know for certain what they pretty well know already. As I hinted to Norgate in my last letter, there was a labour crisis on when we sailed. Some aggrieved blackguard on the dock, acting on his own or under command of his 'Union,' shovelled half a dozen bombs in with the coal. Simple process. Between seven hundred and a thousand miles out, this particular batch of coal was reached and shovelled into the forward furnaces. I counted four explosions. Two of them blew her bows to pieces, and she sank by the head and was gone in twenty minutes.
"Must I tell it, when I am home and dying to ask questions?—Oh, very well, then.… I shall be perfectly truthful so far as the history goes; but I warn you that at a certain point you won't like it, and you'll go on to like it less. You and I have been friends, Roddy, and you naturally suppose that I've come straight to you, as my first friend, to be welcomed and to ask for counsel. But you suppose wrong. I am come asking neither for advice, nor for a sympathy— which I know I shan't get."