"He's married, a year since, and is already the
father of a bouncing boy. I acted as his best man, by request.
He has a delightful and tiny wife who keeps him in order, which he
passes on to the County of Warwickshire as Justice of the Peace and
Coram. . . . But about the _Eurotas_?" I persisted. "I don't think
you quite realise. There were passengers on board: and for months--"
"Of course there were passengers," Foe agreed. "It won't help their
relatives (will it?) to know for certain what they pretty well know
already. As I hinted to Norgate in my last letter, there was a
labour crisis on when we sailed. Some aggrieved blackguard on the
dock, acting on his own or under command of his 'Union,' shovelled
half a dozen bombs in with the coal. Simple process. Between seven
hundred and a thousand miles out, this particular batch of coal was
reached and shovelled into the forward furnaces. I counted four
explosions. Two of them blew her bows to pieces, and she sank by the
head and was gone in twenty minutes.
"Must I tell it, when I am home and dying to ask questions?--Oh, very
well, then.
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