Even at the moment when he offered a limp hand Captain Rannie did not raise his eyes above Mr. Spokesly's side pockets, and he lost no time in resuming the conversation. Mr. Spokesly found that this was one of Captain Rannie's most notable peculiarities. He had the air of a silent, reserved man, and he gave one a strong impression of being silent and reserved since he never divulged anything about himself. Yet he was always in the midst of an interminable monologue. When you met him he was talking rapidly in a low, ill-tempered lisping voice, he continued whether you had business with him or not, and he was still at it when you bade him good day. He talked extremely well, with a sort of heavy varnish of culture instead of fine polish, and he took occasional deep breaths in order to sound his periods correctly. The subjects of his discourse were two: his own virtues and the sins of everybody else on earth. Perhaps this was why he was never finished, since both subjects were inexhaustible. No one had ever given him a fair deal and he had given up expecting it. There were many things about himself to which he never alluded, but he gave the impression that in strict justice he ought to allude to them and very unfavourably, since he had been so badly treated by the other parties. He was never heard to mention the war, for example, or his own participation in the fray. He talked, indeed, as a very garrulous being from another planet might, after a few intensive lessons on human frailty. At the present moment he was giving it as his fixed opinion, and supporting it with an overwhelming mass of fresh evidence, that everybody--the agent in Port Said, the crew including the mate and the engineer, the warship who had peremptorily demanded his name and port of origin, and the captain of the port who had assigned him a bad berth nearly three miles from the dock--was in a conspiracy to make his life a hell on earth. After he had shaken hands with Mr. Spokesly his arm dropped slackly across his knee once more, leaving the cigarette-stained fingers to make expressive motions emphasizing the ghastliness of the tale he unfolded. And never once did he raise his eyes to either of his auditors. It almost seemed as though he could not bear to look in the faces of those beings from whom it was impossible to obtain justice.