Captain Bell joined the two. "The Pilot-fish," said he, "is a balmy galoot in a little yawl who has been eddyin' around in our wake all summer. When it got certain that his whole business was to trail us I went alongside him and asked what he meant by such cheek. I found a long, tawny, sleepy-eyed scoundrel drinking tea and munching macaroons." "'Good-day,' says he. 'Won't you come aboard? You are just in time for tea.' "'Thanks,' said I, 'but I didn't come for tea. I came to ask why in thunder you hang under my fin like a bloomin' pilot-fish.' "He sets down his tea-cup and turns a pair of yellow eyes on me. "'Do you mind?' he asks. 'I don't want to intrude.' "'That depends on what you do it for,' I answered. "'Well, then,' says he, rumplin' up his hair, which is about a foot long and the colour of coir rope, 'I follow you because it saves me the trouble of deciding where I want to go.' "'The deuce you do,' said I, too surprised to say more. "'Do you mind?" he asks again. "'I don't know that I mind,' said I, 'but you make me tired. Can't you do your own thinkin'?' "'It's so distractin',' says he, and heaves a sigh. 'You see, Captain Bell, I am a poet and if I have to determine where I want to go it breaks into the Muse....'" And Bell went off into a fit of wheezy laughter which finished in a coughing spell. "Now what d'ye think of that...?" he gasped. "It sounds fishy to me," Wood observed. Bell nodded. "Still," said he, "there may be something in it, after all. I give you my word, I come near flying off my chump sometimes trying to decide where to go next. The girls will never help me out. But to go back to this balm. 'Just the same,' I said, 'it must be deuced inconvenient sometimes to follow me through all kinds of weather in that little thing.' Says he, 'That's good moral discipline. If it weren't for that I'd lie in one place and rot. You'd see the pond-lilies sproutin' from my spars. For instance...' says he, 'comin' up here I got started too late to catch the tide, and was dodging rocks in the fog all night long. That is an excellent way for a poet to refresh his faculties,' says he. 'Of my own initiative it would never happen, but I put myself under a moral obligation to go wherever and whenever you do.'"