No one would employ us.

And moreover no ship navigated and sailed in the happy-go- lucky manner people conduct their business on shore would ever arrive into port." Since he had retired from the sea he had been astonished to discover that the educated people were not much better than the others.

No one seemed to take any proper pride in his work: from plumbers who were simply thieves to, say, newspaper men (he seemed to think them a specially intellectual class) who never by any chance gave a correct version of the simplest affair.

This universal inefficiency of what he called "the shore gang" he ascribed in general to the want of responsibility and to a sense of security.
"They see," he went on, "that no matter what they do this tight little island won't turn turtle with them or spring a leak and go to the bottom with their wives and children." From this point the conversation took a special turn relating exclusively to sea-life.

On that subject he got quickly in touch with Marlow who in his time had followed the sea.