midday
Let me get this man to bed . '' `` It is an Englishman , of course , '' said the Mother Senneville , examining the placid white face . `` They throw their dead about the world like cigar-ends . '' By midday the news was in the London streets , and the talk was all of storms and wrecks and gallant rescues . And a few whose concern it was noted the fact that the Ocean Waif , of London , on a voyage from Antwerp and Southampton to the River Plate , had supposedly been wrecked off the north coast of France . Sole survivor , Albert Robinson , apparently a fireman or a steward , who lay at the Hotel de la Plage at Yport , unconscious , and suffering from a severe concussion of the brain . By midday , also , the cure was established as sick nurse in the back bedroom of the little hotel with an English conversation-book , borrowed from the schoolmaster , protruding from the pocket of his soutane , awaiting the return of Albert Robinson 's inner consciousness .