Still, to a delicate stomach even imaginary smoke can convey damage.
The captain, with his gentle nature, his polish, his sweetness, his moral and verbal purity, seemed pathetically out of place in his rude and autocratic vocation.

It seemed another instance of the irony of fate.
He was going home under a cloud.

The passengers knew about his trouble, and were sorry for him.

Approaching Vancouver through a narrow and difficult passage densely befogged with smoke from the forest fires, he had had the ill-luck to lose his bearings and get his ship on the rocks.
A matter like this would rank merely as an error with you and me; it ranks as a crime with the directors of steamship companies.

The captain had been tried by the Admiralty Court at Vancouver, and its verdict had acquitted him of blame.