One day he asked me in strict confidence if I thought his Lordship was really a God-fearing man. I naturally found this a delicate question, and one very difficult to answer.
“I should be very sorry to misrepresent him,” I replied cautiously, “but I should take him to be a man who feels he has no need to fear God. After all, why should he?”
Captain Welfare looked at me with as much horror as though I had said something blasphemous.
“No need to fear God!” he replied. “Well, I don’t know!”
I saw that if fear, craven fear of a petulant and unreasonable Deity were deleted from his religion, there would be nothing left.
For Welfare was a very simple, literal-minded man. He was one of those who meant “fearing God” when he said it. The words did not convey to him their usual meaning of being bored on Sunday; a commoner and, after all, a much less harmful form of superstition.
I was glad he was shocked, because Ju-ju worship makes me angry, and, unlike the bishop, I am not much interested in the theological ideas of primitive people. I never could see that these ideas had any influence on their conduct. So I was relieved to feel that Captain Welfare would probably not want me to talk about religion any more.
In the intervals between eating and sleeping—the main concerns of a passenger on board ship—I made very material progress in Arabic as expounded by Hassan, and, spending thus a good deal of time in the saloon, I noticed that Captain Welfare was very busy in his cabin. He seemed to spend hours a day writing in a number of large strongly-bound commercial books of the type I was accustomed to think of as “ledgers.”
One day he came to me with an air of great satisfaction on his large countenance, as though he were going to give me an unexpected treat.
“I’ve been thinking, sir,” he said, “that now as you’re a partner you ought to have a thorough overhaul of the books. So I’ve got ’em all up to date and summarised, and ready for your inspection, whenever you feel inclined to take an hour or two at them.”