A deferential steward knocked at his door, and announced breakfast. Mr. Shelf strolled out into the main cabin, threw his cigar into the alley-way, and sat up to the table. The captain and the second mate were mealing with him, and, by the faces of them, they felt out of their element before the epicurean _menu_ which the Cunarder’s cook had sent up in place of the usual hash and tea. But Shelf took the lead, and called for champagne to drink _bon voyage_, and unwrapped himself into a glittering host, and had them at their entire ease in less time than it takes to eat a curried egg. There was no holding the man. He was free with his speech as a bookmaker at Monte Carlo; he was witty, scurrilous, irreverent; he brought out tales which made even the captain grin dubiously. In fact, he showed such a fine vein of breezy sinfulness that the captain (who had been in his service for many a weary year) marveled at his strength in ever keeping it under. George was the only person who understood it all. George sat on a cushioned locker and grinned and appreciated Mr. Shelf’s changed manner to the full. If he could have shown derision for the gulls they had left behind in England, he would have done it cheerfully. Mr. Shelf was all George’s world. He was a most immoral dog. * * * * * Now it came to pass that a sudden change swept over the scene. Whilst Mr. Shelf was initiating his new friends into the beauties of an after-breakfast liqueur, the steamer’s helm was put hard a-port to avoid a fishing-boat which had got in her way; and whilst he chose a cigarette from his elaborate silver case, the steam steering-gear chose to break down, and before he had lit the dainty roll of tobacco and blown out his match and inhaled four puffs of smoke, the steamer was hard-and-fast ashore on one of the outlying reefs of Lundy Island. The mate in charge on the bridge had done his best with reversed engines, but the steamer’s way was too great, and the ported helm gave her a steer which no one could govern; and so she took the shore on a falling tide. Mr. Shelf’s vocabulary lengthened still more surprisingly. The scheme of easy escape had of a sudden been snatched away. The fear of worse than death was upon him, and he cursed the mate, the steamer, and all within her by all the gods he had ever served. The captain suggested that the blame would fall upon the pilot in charge, and Mr. Shelf cursed the pilot with fluent rage. The man was in a perfect hysteria of passion and rage. But by degrees he calmed down, and, when the shipboard flurry was at an end, drew the captain aside and addressed him confidentially. “When can you get her off?” he asked.