FLEEMING'S MARRIAGE 83 



gates and which branches down between each vast 

 block — past a pilot-engine butting refractory trucks 

 into their places — on to the last block, [and] down 

 the branch, sniffing the guano-scented air and 

 detecting the old bones. The hartshorn flavour of 

 the guano becomes very strong, as I near the docks 

 where, across the Elba^s decks, a huge vessel is 

 discharging her cargo of the brown dust, and where 

 huge vessels have been discharging that same cargo 

 for the last five months.' This was the walk he 

 took his young wife on the morrow of his return. 

 She had been used to the society of lawyers and 

 civil servants, moving in that circle which seems 

 to itself the pivot of the nation and is in truth only 

 a clique like another ; and Fleeming was to her the 

 nameless assistant of a nameless firm of engineers, 

 doing his inglorious business, as she now saw for 

 herself, among unsavoury surroundings. But when 

 their walk brought them within view of the river, 

 she beheld a sight to her of the most novel beauty : 

 four great, sea-going ships dressed out with flags. 

 ' How lovely ! ' she cried. ' What is it for ? ' — 

 ' For you,' said Fleeming. Her surprise was only 

 equalled by her pleasure. But perhaps, for what 

 we may call private fame, there is no Hfe like that 

 of the engineer ; who is a great man in out of the 

 way places, by the dockside or on the desert island 

 or in populous ships, and remains quite unheard 

 of in the coteries of London. And Fleeming had 



