"Are you married, Captain?" he asked, in a brief pause, with a flash of intuition. Captain Rannie dropped the match he was holding, changed his legs and began moving his neck violently in his collar while he swallowed. Several times he opened his mouth to speak and nothing happened. He looked hard at Mr. Spokesly's boots. "I make it a rule," he said at length, "and I expect all my officers to bear it in mind, to have no dealings in personalities. I ask no questions about a man's private life and I expect none. I hope this is understood from the first. There's one thing I simply will not tolerate and that is prying into my private affairs." "Well, hang it, I only asked a perfectly natural question. No offence, Captain." "Precisely. None offered, none taken. It's the principle I insist on." "I suppose you've been out here some little time," ventured Mr. Spokesly. "That is a matter that concerns me and nobody else," said Captain Rannie. "That's one thing I find very much in vogue nowadays. Ceaseless curiosity about irrelevant matters. Do I ask you how long you've been out here? I certainly do not. I consider it's nothing to do with me. And yet I am considered unreasonable simply because I demand common decent respect for my own private affairs." "The Captain he no like to talk about his affairs," said Mr. Dainopoulos, who was listening. "Don't you worry. You'll find him all right, Mister. To-morrow you start on the _Kalkis_. That all right, Captain?" Captain Rannie seemed under the stress of some terrific emotion. He swallowed, his foot tapped the floor, the slave-bangle shot up out of sight; and he regarded a point about three feet up the wall with a malignant glare. "I'm sure I'd never dream of interfering in such a matter," he said. "What you do I must stand by. You make the bed, I have to lie on it. That's what a shipmaster's for. He's a doormat, for everybody to wipe their feet on. No matter what happens, he has to take the blame. _I've_ no objection in the world. I expect nothing, and that's all I get." Mr. Dainopoulos evidently knew his captain, for he said: "All right. That's fixed. Now, when we've had something to eat we'll go see the Transport Officer. He's the man." "I hope you don't want _me_ to go with you," said Captain Rannie, looking down at the floor as though he saw the bottomless pit just on the point of opening under their feet. "I've only seen the man once and then he failed to show the very slightest glimmer of comprehension of what I had to put up with. Might as well talk to a stone wall. Absolutely. I'm sure _I_ don't want to see your Transport Officer." "I was going to ask you," said Mr. Spokesly, "if you don't mind, a question. You seem to be in the know all round here." "What is it?" said Mr. Dainopoulos, regarding Mr. Spokesly with sudden interest. He even left his pen in the air while he listened.