"And there was much in young Siddons which helped me to visualize the personality which had suddenly irradiated his soul. Of course he was English, with all the disabilities of his race to express emotion. But the need for sympathy triumphed over these, and he would come along to my room in the dog-watch when I learned something of the tremendous experience which had befallen him. The Second Engineer, who had apparently suffered very slightly indeed, for I saw him in Renfield Street one night with two young ladies on his way to the theatre, assumed an air of dry detachment when he noticed these visits. The Chief, I heard him growling to the Third one day when he thought I was out of earshot, was nursing the mates nowadays. I knew the Second disapproved of friendship on principle. His ideal was to be more or less at loggerheads with everybody. He would wait until you had made some ordinary human remark, when he would retire into his formidable arsenal of facts and figures, and returning with a large and hard chunk of information, throw it at you and knock you down with it. His unreasonableness lay in his failure to realize that a man cannot be your friend and your enemy at the same time, that people are never grateful for being set right. He had a dry and creaking efficiency which made him silently detested. I for one rejoiced when I heard indirectly, at a later period, that a widow of forty, with seven children, had sued him for breach-of-promise. "Young Siddons was unaware of the Second's disapproval, and would slip down after supper, ready to go on at eight, and smoke cigarettes on my settee. You men know how, in fine weather, when you walk to and fro on the bridge, the empty, dragging hours induce the shades of the past to come up and keep you company. We in the engine-room generally have enough to do to keep away the crowds of ghosts. We had fine weather most of the time and young Siddons would come down with a fresh set of impressions which he would try to explain to me. He had been down to see his people while we were at home and I imagine the impact of cheerful, prosperous, well-bred folk had done a lot to modify his views. It was difficult, he confided one evening, to reconcile one's feelings for a girl with the grave problem of one's 'people.' Some chaps had such thundering luck. There was his brother, articled to a solicitor, who had been engaged for three years to a doctor's daughter. They were just waiting until he was admitted. Now, what luck that was! Everything in good taste. She lived in the same road. He saw her every day. Her people were well off. When the time came the brother would have the usual wedding, go to Cromer for a honeymoon, and--start life. Young Siddons was puzzled by the fact that he himself had been bowled over by a girl who, he couldn't help admitting, would not have been approved by the 'people' down in Herefordshire. He saw that! I could perceive in his air