"Positively the sea itself looked like absinthe, green and bitter
and poisonous. I had never known it look so unfamiliar before.
In the sky was that early and stormy darkness that is so depressing to
the mind, and the wind blew shrilly round the little lonely coloured kiosk
where they sell the newspapers, and along the sand-hills by the shore.
There I saw a fishing-boat with a brown sail standing in silently from
the sea. It was already quite close, and out of it clambered a man
of monstrous stature, who came wading to shore with the water not up
to his knees, though it would have reached the hips of many men.
He leaned on a long rake or pole, which looked like a trident, and made him
look like a Triton. Wet as he was, and with strips of seaweed clinging
to him, he walked across to my cafe, and, sitting down at a table outside,
asked for cherry brandy, a liqueur which I keep, but is seldom demanded.
Then the monster, with great politeness, invited me to partake
of a vermouth before my dinner, and we fell into conversation.
He had apparently crossed from Kent by a small boat got at a private
bargain because of some odd fancy he had for passing promptly in an
easterly direction, and not waiting for any of the official boats.
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