They began with mind--more or less--they ate the fruits of indolence, got precious near being sinful as well as indolent, and ended with cheap cynicism, with the old 'quid refert'-- the thing Hamlet plagiarised in his, 'But it is no matter.'" "Isn't this an unusual occupation for you, Hungerford--this Swift-like criticism ?" "Swift-like, is it?
You see, I've practised on many of your race, Marmion, and I have it pat now.

You are all of two classes--those who sicken in soul and leave after one trip, and those who make another trip and are lost." "Lost?
How ?" Hungerford pressed his fingers hard on my breastbone, looked at me enigmatically from under his well-hung brows, and replied: "Brains put out to seed, morals put out to vegetate--that's 'lost.'" "What about fifth officers ?" "Fifth officers work like navvies, and haven't time for foolishness.
They've got to walk the bridge, and practise the boats, and be responsible for luggage--and here I am talking to you like an infallible undergraduate, while the lascars are in endless confusion with a half-dozen pieces of baggage, and the first officer foams because I'm not there to set them right.

I leave you to your dreams.

Good-bye." Hungerford was younger than myself, but he knew the world, and I was flattered by these uncommon remarks, because he talked to no one else on the ship in the same way.

He never sought to make friends, had a thorough contempt for social trifling, and shrugged his shoulders at the "swagger" of some of the other officers.