“They-don’t-stink!” yelled the captain.

“Of course. Or glow in the dark.”

But the clerk saw now how the siesta was being wasted. With the gin wearing off on him under the heavy sun he got a feeling of waste and uselessness, always there when the gin wore off; when this happened he would take the other way he knew for combating these feelings, these really cosmic ones, in his experience, and he became indifferent.

“Very well,” he said. “Lower away, if you wish. Gently,” and with the last word he again and for a moment found his own dreaminess back. He smiled at nothing past the captain’s left ear, and then up at the ship where a box would soon be swinging over. For a moment, inconsequentially, he thought of a childhood time in a London mews; it was so clear and still, and he saw himself walking there, eyes up and watching his green balloon. How it floated.

All this went by when the captain roared suddenly, giving the clerk a start of fright and alertness. Someone roared back from the high deck of the tramper and then the winch started screeching.

“What was it this time?” said the clerk.

“The papers,” said the captain. “We need a bill of lading and so forth. Someone will bring them.”

“Ah,” said the clerk. “I should think so.”

The winch started up again but because of the strain on it the sound was now different. It mostly hummed. From the pier they could see the black line of the gunwale above, and the boom over the hold, the boom holding very still while the humming went on. The clerk, for no reason at all, felt suddenly hot.

“I’ll be glad,” said the captain, “to weigh anchor tonight.”

“Of course.”

“Load, unload, go. Nothing else here.”

“In Okar?” said the clerk, feeling absent-minded.

“What else is here?”

“I don’t know,” said the clerk. “I don’t even know what is here.”

It’s the heat, thought the captain, which makes everything sound like nonsense, and when a seaman came off the ship, bringing a clipboard with papers, the captain grabbed for it as he might for the coattails of fleeing sanity.