Then the captain replied that he wished that he and his box, old and with much bloom and blood, were in hell.

But the thin man did not be offend, and went down with the mate and saw where it was place, and came up and stood awhile on deck in fog.

He must have come off by himself, for none notice him.

Indeed they thought not of him, for soon the fog begin to melt away, and all was clear again.

My friends of the thirst and the language that was of bloom and blood laughed, as they told how the captain's swears exceeded even his usual polyglot, and was more than ever full of picturesque, when on questioning other mariners who were on movement up and down the river that hour, he found that few of them had seen any of fog at all, except where it lay round the wharf.