“D’you know anything about him?”
“No, sir, he don’t frequent this ’otel.”
The waiter said this in a tone which showed that he deemed that fact sufficient to render Jones altogether unworthy of human interest; “but I believe,” he added slowly, “that he is said to ’ave plenty of money, bears a bad character, and is rather fond of his bottle, sir.”
“You know nothing more?”
“Nothing, sir.”
“Ham and eggs, dry toast and shrimps,” said the keen-eyed traveller in reply to the reiterated question.
Before these viands were placed on the table the brief twilight had passed away and darkness en-shrouded land and sea. After they had been consumed the traveller called for the latest local paper, to which he devoted himself for an hour with unflagging zeal—reading it straight through, apparently, advertisements and all, with as much diligence as if it were a part of his professional business to do so. Then he tossed it away, rang the bell, and ordered a candle.
“I suppose,” he said, pointing towards the sea, as he was about to quit the room, “that that is the floating light?”
“It is one of ’em, sir,” replied the waiter. “There are three lights on the sands, sir; the Northsan ’ead, the Gull-stream, and the Southsan ’ead. That one, sir, is the Gull.”
“How far off may it be?”