"Well, hang it, I only asked a perfectly natural question. No offence, Captain."
"Precisely. None offered, none taken. It's the principle I insist on."
"I suppose you've been out here some little time," ventured Mr. Spokesly.
"That is a matter that concerns me and nobody else," said Captain Rannie. "That's one thing I find very much in vogue nowadays. Ceaseless curiosity about irrelevant matters. Do I ask you how long you've been out here? I certainly do not. I consider it's nothing to do with me. And yet I am considered unreasonable simply because I demand common decent respect for my own private affairs."
"The Captain he no like to talk about his affairs," said Mr. Dainopoulos, who was listening. "Don't you worry. You'll find him all right, Mister. To-morrow you start on the Kalkis. That all right, Captain?"
Captain Rannie seemed under the stress of some terrific emotion. He swallowed, his foot tapped the floor, the slave-bangle shot up out of sight; and he regarded a point about three feet up the wall with a malignant glare.
"I'm sure I'd never dream of interfering in such a matter," he said. "What you do I must stand by. You make the bed, I have to lie on it. That's what a shipmaster's for. He's a doormat, for everybody to wipe their feet on. No matter what happens, he has to take the blame. I've no objection in the world. I expect nothing, and that's all I get."
Mr. Dainopoulos evidently knew his captain, for he said: "All right. That's fixed. Now, when we've had something to eat we'll go see the Transport Officer. He's the man."
"I hope you don't want me to go with you," said Captain Rannie, looking down at the floor as though he saw the bottomless pit just on the point of opening under their feet. "I've only seen the man once and then he failed to show the very slightest glimmer of comprehension of what I had to put up with. Might as well talk to a stone wall. Absolutely. I'm sure I don't want to see your Transport Officer."
"I was going to ask you," said Mr. Spokesly, "if you don't mind, a question. You seem to be in the know all round here."