He broke off again and considered me with a sort of weary defiance.
"What's the use?" He spread out his hands in a gesture of hopelessness. "I knew you wouldn't believe it when I started. You couldn't . It would be a kind of blasphemy against the sacred institution of pavements. You're too damn smug, Ridgeway. I can't shake you. You haven't sat two days and two nights, keeping your eyes open by sheer teeth-gritting, until they got used to it and wouldn't shut any more. When I tell you I found that yellow thing snooping around the davits, and three bights off the boat-fall loosened out, plain on deck--you grin behind your collar. When I tell you she padded off forward and evaporated--flickered back to hell and hasn't been seen since, then--why, you explain to yourself that I'm drunk. I tel
