The Author surveyed the beggar and slapped his pockets. Never had he seen so miserable a face. It was by no means a prepossessing face, with its aquiline nose, its sloping brows, its dark, deep, bloodshot eyes much too close together, its V-shaped, dishonest mouth and drenched chin-tuft. And yet it was attractively animal and pitiful. The idea flashed suddenly into the Author's head: "Why not, instead of going on, thinking emptily, through this beastly weather--why not take this man back home now, to the warm, dry study, and give him a hot drink and something to smoke, and _draw him out_?" Get something technical and first-hand that would rather score off Kipling. "Its damnably cold!" he shouted, in a sort of hearty, forecastle voice. "It's worse than that," said the strange stoker. "It's a hell of a day!" said the Author, more forcible than ever. "Don't remind me of hell," said the stoker, in a voice of inappeasable regret. The Author slapped his pockets again. "You've got an infernal cold. Look here, my man--confound it! would you like a hot grog?..." [Illustration] § 3 The scene shifts to the Author's study--a blazing coal fire, the stoker sitting dripping and steaming before it, with his feet inside the fender, while the Author fusses about the room, directing the preparation of hot drinks. The Author is acutely aware not only of the stoker but of himself. The stoker has probably never been in the home of an Author before; he is probably awe-stricken at the array of books, at the comfort, convenience, and efficiency of the home, at the pleasant personality entertaining him.... Meanwhile the Author does not forget that the stoker is material, is "copy," is being watched, _observed_. So he poses and watches, until presently he forgets to pose in his astonishment at the thing he is observing. Because this stoker is rummier than a stoker ought to be---- He does not simply accept a hot drink; he informs his host just how hot the drink must be to satisfy him. "Isn't there something you could put in it--something called red pepper? I've tasted that once or twice. It's good. If you could put in a bit of red pepper." "If you can stand that sort of thing?" "And if there isn't much water, can't you set light to the stuff? Or let me drink it boiling, out of a pannikin or something? Pepper and all." Wonderful fellows, these stokers! The Author went to the bell and asked for red pepper.