His memory was amazing. If Dorothy found her notes obscure, and to complete a sentence happened to insert a word that was not the one he had dictated, John Dene would note it as he read the letter with a little grunt, sometimes of approval, sometimes of doubt or correction.
There were times when she felt, as she expressed it to her mother, as if she had been dining off beef essence and oxygen. Sometimes she wondered where John Dene obtained all his amazing vitality. He was a small eater, seeming to regard meals as a waste of time, and he seldom drank anything but water.
At the end of the day Dorothy would feel more tired than she had ever felt before; but she had caught something of John Dene's enthusiasm, which seemed to carry her along and defy the fatigues of the body. Had it not been for the Saturday afternoons, and the whole day's rest on Sunday, she felt that she would not have been able to continue.
In his intolerance John Dene was sometimes amusing, sometimes monotonous; but always uncompromising. One day Dorothy ventured a word of expostulation. He had just been expressing his unmeasured contempt for Mr. Blair.
"You mustn't judge the whole British Navy by Mr. Blair," she said, looking up from her note-book with a smile.
"One fool makes many," he had snapped decisively.
"So that if I prove a fool," continued Dorothy quietly, "it convicts you of being a fool also."
"But that's another transaction," he objected.
"Is it?" she asked, and became absorbed in her notes.
For some time John Dene had continued to dictate. Presently he stopped in the middle of a letter. "I hadn't figured it out that way," he said.