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Updated: May 31, 2025
Van Wyk put his hands in his pockets, and, straddling his legs, stared down at a black panther skin lying on the floor before a rocking-chair. "It looks as if the fellow had not the pluck to play his own precious game openly," he thought. This was true enough. In the face of Massy's last rebuff Sterne dared not declare his knowledge.
"I have a floating yearly policy," Mr. Van Wyk said almost unwittingly, and was amazed at the sudden cropping up of a commercial detail. "The ship is unseaworthy, I tell you. The policy would be invalid if it were known . . ." "We shall share the guilt, then." "Nothing could make mine less," said Captain Whalley.
Captain Whalley, motionless under the full blaze of the lamp, shaded his face with his hand. "And you had that courage?" "Call it by what name you like. But you are a humane man a a gentleman, Mr. Van Wyk. You may have asked me what I had done with my conscience." He seemed to muse, profoundly silent, very still in his mournful pose. "I began to tamper with it in my pride.
The difference of their ages was like another bond between them. Once, when twitted with the uncharitableness of his youth, Mr. Van Wyk, running his eye over the vast proportions of his interlocutor, retorted in friendly banter "Oh. You'll come to my way of thinking yet. You'll have plenty of time. Don't call yourself old: you look good for a round hundred."
Massy tried to protest earnestly. Mr. Van Wyk was very angry. He had a good mind to ask that German firm those people in Malacca what was their name? boats with green funnels. They would be only too glad of the opening to put one of their small steamers on the run. Yes; Schnitzler, Jacob Schnitzler, would in a moment. Yes. He had decided to write without delay.
Van Wyk saw Sterne blink straight at him and raise his hand to his hat. The inquiry had exonerated everybody from all blame. The loss of the ship was put down to an unusual set of the current. Indeed, it could not have been anything else: there was no other way to account for the ship being set seven miles to the eastward of her position during the middle watch. "A piece of bad luck for me, sir."
And he would be so enraged at the necessity of having to offer such an explanation that his moaning would be positively pitiful, while all the time he tried to compose his big lips into a smile. "No, Mr. Van Wyk. You would not believe it. I couldn't get one of those wretches to take the ship out. Not a single one of the lazy beasts could be induced, and the law, you know, Mr. Van Wyk . . ."
Captain Whalley had been also the pioneer of the early trade in the Gulf of Pe-tchi-li. He even found occasion to mention that he had buried his "dear wife" there six-and-twenty years ago. Mr. Van Wyk, impassive, could not help speculating in his mind swiftly as to the sort of woman that would mate with such a man. Did they make an adventurous and well-matched pair? No.
W.V. Van Wyk, of 30 and 31 Newgate street, E.C. In the test applied by them, a joint of this "Hercules glue," as it is called, in a 4 in. single belt was stronger than the solid leather. When a tensile stress of 2,174 lb., equivalent to 2,860 lb. per square inch of section, was applied, the leather gave way, leaving the joint intact.
Why, in knowledge of truth, in decency, in justice, in order in honesty too, since men harmed each other mostly from ignorance. It was, Captain Whalley concluded quaintly, more pleasant to live in. Mr. Van Wyk whimsically would not admit that Mr. Massy, for instance, was more pleasant naturally than the Balinini pirates. The river had not gained much by the change.
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