He told me it was time to turn out; the steward was calling for me; there was the cabin deck to scrub and the cuddy to be got ready for breakfast. ‘I’ll follow you in an instant,’ said I. ‘Do you know,’ said he, going to the door, ‘dot you vhas very goodt-looking? It vhas lucky you hov goodt teeth, you show them even in your sleep. I sometimes belief I must hov seen your sister. But hov you a sister?’ ‘No,’ said I, rubbing my eyes and troubled by these questions, and wishing he would go. ‘Vell, I vhas a waiter for two or three months at the Brunswick Hotel in der East India Docks, and I remember a handsome young lady dot came in once or twice in dot time. She vhas so much like you she might easily hov been your sister.’ He went out when he had said this. I had no time to reflect, but certainly I had found no air of suspicion in his manner. It took me but a minute to plunge my face in cold water and go out, having lain down for warmth, fully dressed, save my cap and shoes. On showing myself, the steward told me to get a bucket and go on the poop and fetch water from the pump, which the apprentices and some ordinary seamen were washing down the deck by. I mounted the companion-ladder and found the morning brightening into sunshine. The sea in the east was radiant with sliding hills of silver; the sky was a delicate azure, high, with small feather-shaped clouds linked like lacework. Passing us at the distance of a mile was a large ship with flags flying. She was bowing the sea somewhat heavily, and made a noble picture as she crushed the brine into snow under her massive forefoot, yielding to the surge till the line of her green copper showed with a long, wet flash, whilst the soft whiteness of her canvas ran trembling in shadows to her trucks with her tossing, where it blended with the feather-shaped clouds, so that you could scarce tell one from another.