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To say I was startled would not express it. I remained still, like a man lost in a dream. Clapping both his hands to that part of his frail anatomy which had received the shock, the poor wretch said to me simply:

“Will you go in, please.” His lamentable self-possession was wonderful; but it did not do away with the incredibility of the experience. A preposterous notion that I had seen this boy somewhere before, a thing obviously impossible, was like a delicate finishing touch of weirdness added to a scene fit to raise doubts as to one’s sanity. I stared anxiously about me like an awakened somnambulist.

“I say,” I cried loudly, “there isn’t a mistake, is there? This is Mr. Jacobus’s office.”

The boy gazed at me with a pained expression–and somehow so familiar! A voice within growled offensively:

“Come in, come in, since you are there. . . . I didn’t know.”

I crossed the outer room as one approaches the den of some unknown wild beast; with intrepidity but in some excitement. Only no wild beast that ever lived would rouse one’s indignation; the power to do that belongs to the odiousness of the human brute. And I was very indignant, which did not prevent me from being at once struck by the extraordinary resemblance of the two brothers.

This one was dark instead of being fair like the other; but he was as big. He was without his coat and waistcoat; he had been doubtless snoozing in the rocking-chair which stood in a corner furthest from the window. Above the great bulk of his crumpled white shirt, buttoned with three diamond studs, his round face looked swarthy. It was moist; his brown moustache hung limp and ragged. He pushed a common, cane-bottomed chair towards me with his foot.

“Sit down.”

I glanced at it casually, then, turning my indignant eyes full upon him, I declared in precise and incisive tones that I had called in obedience to my owners’ instructions.

“Oh! Yes. H’m! I didn’t understand what that fool was saying. . . . But never mind! It will teach the scoundrel to disturb me at this time of the day,” he added, grinning at me with savage cynicism.

I looked at my watch. It was past three o’clock–quite the full swing of afternoon office work in the port. He snarled imperiously: “Sit down, Captain.”

I acknowledged the gracious invitation by saying deliberately:

“I can listen to all you may have to say without sitting down.”

Emitting a loud and vehement “Pshaw!” he glared for a moment, very round-eyed and fierce. It was like a gigantic tomcat spitting at one suddenly. “Look at him! . . . What do you fancy yourself to be? What did you come here for? If you won’t sit down and talk business you had better go to the devil.”

“I don’t know him personally,” I said. “But after this I wouldn’t mind calling on him. It would be refreshing to meet a gentleman.”

He followed me, growling behind my back:

“The impudence! I’ve a good mind to write to your owners what I think of you.”

I turned on him for a moment:

“As it happens I don’t care. For my part I assure you I won’t even take the trouble to mention you to them.”

He stopped at the door of his office while I traversed the littered anteroom. I think he was somewhat taken aback.

“I will break every bone in your body,” he roared suddenly at the miserable mulatto lad, “if you ever dare to disturb me before half- past three for anybody. D’ye hear? For anybody! . . . Let alone any damned skipper,” he added, in a lower growl.

The frail youngster, swaying like a reed, made a low moaning sound. I stopped short and addressed this sufferer with advice. It was prompted by the sight of a hammer (used for opening the wine-cases, I suppose) which was lying on the floor.

“If I were you, my boy, I would have that thing up my sleeve when I went in next and at the first occasion I would–“