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‘Ah, come on. Of course she won’t.’

‘Yes, she will. You don’t know women. Once the new has wore off it’ll be some bird that stayed at home and made money, or some lad that wore shiny leggings and never got nowheres so he could get hurt, like you and me.’

The porter came to hover over the sleeping man.

‘He ain’t got sick, has he?’ he whispered.

They told him no; and the Negro eased the position of the sleeping man’s head. ‘You gentlemen look after him and be sure to call me if he wants anything. He’s a sick man.’

Gilligan and Lowe, looking at the officer, agreed, and the porter lowered the shade. ‘You want some more ginger ale?’

‘Yes,’ said Gilligan, assuming the porter’s hushed tone, and the Negro withdrew. The two of them sat in silent comradeship, the comradeship of those whose lives had become pointless through the sheer equivocation of events, of the sorry jade, Circumstance. The porter brought ginger ale and they sat drinking while New York became Ohio.

Gilligan, that talkative unserious one, entered some dream within himself and Cadet Lowe, young and dreadfully disappointed, knew all the old sorrows of the Jasons of the world who see their vessels sink ere the harbour is left behind.... Beneath his scar the officer slept in all the travesty of his wings and leather and brass, and a terrible old woman paused, saying: