"All night we crawled along. You see, the Straits of Dover are very like Piccadilly Circus. You never know who you may run against in a fog, it's so crowded and the company is so mixed. About breakfast time the Old Man judged by soundings he was abeam of Dungeness and we went half-speed. The fog lifted about Beachy Head.
"So you see, the fact and the fiction was so mixed up in my mind that by the time we got into the Western Ocean I didn't feel sure which was which. The Second Mate never said a word more about green lights, for if he allowed there was an aeroplane about on the middle watch the Skipper would naturally ask him why he didn't see it. And then what mixed things in my mind still more was my picking up the Fourth's magazine in the mess-room one day and reading that yarn. I was going to tell you about this; but merely to show you how my brother impressed me that I dreamt about him at sea. But now—it seems I didn't dream it after all.
"I'm not surprised," went on Mr. Carville, after a slight pause to stir up the ash in his pipe with a pen-knife, "not surprised. My brother had it in him always. Quite apart from any personal feeling I might have for him or against, I was always prepared, so to say, to see him doing something big. His trouble with his season-ticket and his bigger trouble that put him in gaol were very much on a par. He always had an unconventional way of getting what he wanted. It was no use talking to him; he simply doesn't see what you mean. I—I wonder what he's going to do next."
"He might pay a visit over here," I said tentatively. Mr. Carville gave me a quick glance.
"I shouldn't like that at all," he said, shaking his head. "You see ... I might be away ... I shouldn't like it at all."
He was obviously disturbed, and I felt that the suggestion had been unwise. Obviously it would not do to tell him that his brother knew where he was.
"So far," he remarked presently, "my little boys don't know anything about their uncle. I've no wish that they should. I want them to grow up in this country without any connection with Europe at all. Any debt they owe to Europe can be paid later. My brother couldn't help them at all. And Rosa——"
Mr. Carville stood up to go. The cover for Payne's Monthly caught his eye and he nodded approvingly.
"That's clever," he said. "I wish sometimes I'd gone in for doing things, like you. As you said, a man's mind rusts, gets seized, if it isn't working. I did think of doing something with a few papers I've got in my berth on the Raritan, but—I don't know."
"Why not let me have a look at them?" I said. "I might act as a sort of an agent for you, unpaid of course——"