Next day I made an opportunity to speak with him, after service.  It needed no pressing to extract his story, and he told it with entire simplicity.  He was a Cockney, and by trade had been a baker in Bermondsey.  “A wearing trade,” he said.  “The most of us die before forty.  You’d be surprised.”  But he had started with a sound constitution, and somehow persuaded himself, in spite of warnings, that he was immune.  At thirty-two he had married.  “A deal later than most,” he explained—­and had scarcely been married three months before lung trouble declared itself.  “I had a few pounds put by, having married so late; and it seemed a duty to Emily to give myself every chance:  so we packed up almost at once and started for South Africa.  It was a wrench to her, but the voyage out did us both all the good in the world, she being in a delicate state of health, and the room in Bermondsey not fit for a woman in that condition.”  The baby was born in Cape Town, five months after their landing.  “But they’ve no employment for bakers out there,” he assured me.  “We found trade very low altogether, and what I picked up wasn’t any healthier than in London.  Emily disliked the place, too; though she’d have stayed gladly if it had been doing me any good.  And so back we’re going.  There’s one thing:  I’m safe of work.  My old employer in Bermondsey has promised that all right.  And the child, you see, sir, won’t suffer.  There’s no consumption, that I know of, in either of our families; and Emily, you may be sure, will see he’s not brought up to be a baker.”

He announced it in the most matter-of-fact way.  He was going back to England to die—­to die speedily—­and he knew it.  “I should like you to see our baby, sir,” he added.  “He weighs extraordinary, for his age.  My wife comes from the North of England—­a very big-boned family; and he’s British, every ounce of him, though he was born in South Africa.”

But the wife took a chill on entering the Bay, and remained below with the child; nor was it until the day we sighted England that I saw the whole family together.

We were to pick up the Eddystone; and as this was calculated to happen at sunset, or a little after, the usual sweepstake on the saloon-deck aroused a little more than the usual excitement.  For the first glimpse, whether of lighthouse or light, would give the prize to the nearest guesser.  If we anticipated sunset, the clearness of the weather would decide between two pretty close shots:  if we ran it fine, the lamp (which carries for seventeen miles and more) might upset those who staked on daylight even at that distance from the mark.  Our guesses had been tabulated, and the paper pinned up in the smoking-room.

They allowed a margin of some twenty-five knots on the twenty-four hours’ run—­ranging, as nearly as I can recollect, from three hundred and thirty-five to three hundred and sixty; and the date being the last week of March, and sunset falling close on half-past six, a whole nebula of guesses surrounded that hour, one or two divided only by a few seconds.