14/37 One evening they were grouped as usual around the square table in the brightly-lighted little room that Barker and the Duke affected most. The fourfold beat of the screw crushed the water quickly and sent its peculiar vibration through the vessel as she sped along in the quiet night. The Duke was extended on a transom, and Claudius on the one opposite, while Barker tipped himself about on his chair at the end of the table. The Duke was talkative, in a disjointed, monosyllabic fashion. |