He looked up, pen in hand, and all the wrinkles, graven by years of hardship and trouble, were swept away like writing from a slate.
He laid aside his pen and held his hand out across the table.
"Had your breakfast ?" he asked, curtly, with a glance at the empty coffee-pot.
Loo laughed as he sat down.

It was all so familiar--the disorder of the cabin; the smell of lamp-oil; the low song of the wind through the rigging, that came humming in at the doorway, which was never closed, night or day, unless the seas were washing to and fro on the main deck.
He knew everything so well; the very pen and the rarely used ink-pot; the Captain's attitude, and the British care that he took not to speak with his lips that which was in his heart.
"Well," said Captain Clubbe, taking up his pen again, "how are you getting on ?" "With what ?" "With the business that brought you to this country," answered Clubbe, with a sudden gruffness; for he was, like the majority of big men, shy.
Barebone looked at him across the table.
"Do you know what the business is that brought me to this country ?" he asked.

And Captain Clubbe looked thoughtfully at the point of his pen.
"Did the Marquis de Gemosac and Dormer Colville tell you everything, or only a little ?" "I don't suppose they told me everything," was the reply.

"Why should they?
I am only a seafaring man." "But they told you enough," persisted Barebone, "for you to draw your own conclusions as to my business over here." "Yes," answered Clubbe, with a glance across the table.

"Is it going badly ?" "No.