Mr. Binney had remarkable information. Moreover, he talked and made discreet jokes to such effect that silences, in which there might have been time to think, were pleasantly avoided.... Was it true that Mr. Reeve had a son who was going to enter the Service? Ah! that he didn’t know. Was the sub of the _King Arthur_ a good fellow? That he couldn’t say. Mr. Binney knew exactly what things he ought to know and say. Personalities--save in a complimentary context--were to him an abomination. Lynwood found that he was absurdly sorry for Mr. Binney--so eager, so capable, so warm-hearted a man and yet a tailor’s assistant! What, in the terms of this world, was his reward for all these excellencies? Lynwood pictured the little man’s family, the boy for whose education he had saved, the girl for whose happy marriage he was already laying plans. What were Mr. Binney’s castles in the air? He was too good a man to have none.... Then Lynwood’s thoughts shifted abruptly. He became envious of Mr. Binney, who would not have to go into that bleak ship, who would return comfortably to London--though it were in a third-class compartment--who would dine that evening among friends, who would sleep that night, not in a strange hammock, but in a familiar bed. Mr. Binney’s future was at least certain. Lynwood glanced at his kindly eyes. He saw the beads of perspiration which much stooping had produced upon his red forehead. Mr. Binney was tired, very tired. Three other midshipmen--Sentley, Cunwell, and Fane-Herbert--were in the room when Lynwood arrived. He knew them all intimately, for they had served their training as cadets in his term. Sentley was small, dark, and a little pompous in manner. An unimaginative conscientiousness was written plainly on his face. Cunwell was of a heavier type, square headed, square bodied, and coarse skinned. He had loose lips that were usually wet, and self-assurance that was aggressive. He possessed, however, a certain force, not of intellect--for his flat, almost concave, forehead proclaimed his stupidity--but of personality, a personality impervious to satire. It was not his habit to think more deeply than mere physical action demanded. He was neither an observer of himself nor an analyst of others. To him nothing was a symbol, everything a fact. He treated the mind with suspicious hostility, as if it derived its strength from witchcraft and the evil powers. Mental capacity seemed to him no more than an unfair advantage over himself exercised by others in examination-rooms, and he did not allow himself to be troubled by his own deficiency in this respect. He brushed it aside characteristically. “You brainy fellows will soon learn that exams don’t count for much.”