"How is the rib?" I asked in my usual stupid way, for all enquiry was out of place in a paradise so tranquil. And then I proceeded still more ineptly by begging him not to be disturbed. "What rib?" enquired Strogue, with as much surprise as he could reconcile with his dignity. "Why, the rib that was broken the other day," I answered, with some sense of trespass on his constitution. "I remember now; and I call it very kind of you to think of it. But I understand my own inside, and can very soon put it right again. How are you getting on with your love-affair, my boy?" I did not see my way (as people always put it now, when they don't want to do what you want of them)--I did not see the fitness of discussing Dariel in this draught of echo, and with the bar in the background clinking pots and mumbling chaff. "Hold my pipe, while I get up," the Captain said magnanimously, for his feet were on a leg-rest, and it was very good of him to move; "I never take anything so early in the day; but I don't judge the juniors. Come along, and bring my pewter." When he had led me to an inner room, which appeared to be his sanctum, I told him what had happened, but could not by any means bring myself to show him Dariel's letter. And he did not ask for it; with all his bluffness, at heart he was a gentleman. "Cut up rough, of course," he said; "would not have been worth her salt, if she hadn't. Only two things are added to our knowledge. One that they have been at Dresden, and the other that Hafer has been at work with that musk-rat of a Petheril. He sent him to Sheffield after you; that is plainer than a pikestaff. He could not have gone on his own hook; for he knows nothing of English ways, and very little of the language. He found that I would not do his dirty work, and so he took up with that blackguard. And cleaned me out, sir, cleaned me out! That is where I shall never forgive myself, until I cry evens with him. Would you look for any green lines in Bat Strogue, a tyke who has been round the world?"