Yes, Mr. Powell, whom the chance of his name had thrown upon the floating
stage of that tragicomedy would have been perfectly useless for my
purpose if the unusual of an obvious kind had not aroused his attention
from the first.
We know how he joined that ship so suddenly offered to his anxious desire
to make a real start in his profession. He had come on board breathless
with the hurried winding up of his shore affairs, accompanied by two
horrible night-birds, escorted by a dock policeman on the make, received
by an asthmatic shadow of a ship-keeper, warned not to make a noise in
the darkness of the passage because the captain and his wife were already
on board. That in itself was already somewhat unusual. Captains and
their wives do not, as a rule, join a moment sooner than is necessary.
They prefer to spend the last moments with their friends and relations. A
ship in one of London's older docks with their restrictions as to lights
and so on is not the place for a happy evening. Still, as the tide
served at six in the morning, one could understand them coming on board
the evening before.
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