I know not why he was so infinitely pathetic , unless it were because he was so pathetically unaware of it ; but even strong men had to turn hastily from looking at him , and more than once on summer evenings he had touched the fount of Hook 's tears and made it flow . Of this , as of almost everything else , Smee was quite unconscious . A few of the pirates leant over the bulwarks drinking in the miasma of the night ; others sprawled by barrels over games of dice and cards ; and the exhausted four who had carried the little house lay prone on the deck , where even in their sleep they rolled skilfully to this side or that out of Hook 's reach , lest he should claw them mechanically in passing . Hook trod the deck in thought . O man unfathomable . It was his hour of triumph . Peter had been removed for ever from his path , and all the other boys were on the brig , about to walk the plank . It was his grimmest deed since the days when he had brought Barbecue to heel ; and knowing as we do how vain a tabernacle is man , could we be surprised had he now paced the deck unsteadily , bellied out by the winds of his success ? But there was no elation in his gait , which kept pace with the action of his sombre mind . Hook was profoundly dejected . He was often thus when communing with himself on board ship in the quietude of the night . It was because he was so terribly alone . This inscrutable man never felt more alone than when surrounded by his dogs . They were socially so inferior to him . Hook was not his true name . To reveal who he really was would even at this date set the country in a blaze ; but as those who read between the lines must already have guessed , he had been at a famous public school ; and its traditions still clung to him like garments , with which indeed they are largely concerned . Thus it was offensive to him even now to board a ship in the same dress in which he grappled her ; and he still adhered in his walk to the school 's distinguished slouch . But above all he retained the passion for good form . Good form ! However much he may have degenerated , he still knew that this is all that really matters .
From far within him he heard a creaking as of rusty portals , and through them came a stern tap-tap-tap , like hammering in the XXXXX when one can not sleep .
Peter Smee bulwarks days evenings fount hour miasma night quietude