It is John Saunders's gift.

Companionship seems quietly to ooze out of him, without the need of words.

He and you are there in your comfortable arm-chairs, with a good cigar, a whisky-and-soda, or a glass of that old port on which he prides himself, and that is all that is necessary.
Where is the need of words?
And occasionally, we have, as third in those evening conclaves, a big slow-smiling, broad-faced young merchant, of the same kidney.

In he drops with a nod and a smile, selects his cigar and his glass, and takes his place in the smoke-cloud of our meditations, radiating, without the effort of speech, that good thing--humanity; though one must not forget the one subject on which now and again the good Charlie Webster achieves eloquence in spite of himself--duck-shooting.

That is the only subject worth breaking the pleasant brotherhood of silence for.
John Saunders's subject is shark-fishing.