{"id":"01KG6G8661FYTCXNS1KFJ156GV","cid":"bafkreieimagp5v5bnk2ztxc7ctdotw3xpw5pbvi4gemfv2ls2fvqohyhfa","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":1924,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T03:48:16.150Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 2","source_file":"01KG6FXSCNX5F3D880P3YP3PKR","start_line":1882,"text":"confidential tongue.\r\n\r\nOur Handsome Sailor’s manly forwardness upon occasion, and irresistible\r\ngood-nature, indicating no mental superiority tending to excite an\r\ninvidious feeling, bred general popularity, and this good-will on the\r\npart of most of his shipmates made him the less to concern himself about\r\nsuch mute aspects toward him as those whereto allusion has just been\r\nmade.\r\n\r\nAs to the afterguardsman, though Billy for reasons already given\r\nnecessarily saw little of him, yet when the two did happen to meet,\r\ninvariably came the fellow’s off-hand cheerful recognition, sometimes\r\naccompanied by a passing pleasant word or two. Whatever that equivocal\r\nyoung person’s original design may really have been, or the design of\r\nwhich he might have been the deputy, certain it was from his manner upon\r\nthese occasions, that he had wholly dropped it.\r\n\r\nIt was as if his precocity of crookedness (and every vulgar villain is\r\nprecocious) had for once deceived him, and the man he had sought to\r\nentrap as a simpleton had, through his very simplicity, baffled him.\r\n\r\nBut shrewd ones may opine that it was hardly possible for Billy to\r\nrefrain from going up to the afterguardsman and bluntly demanding to\r\nknow his purpose in the initial interview, so abruptly closed in the\r\nfore-chains. Shrewd ones may also think it but natural in Billy to set\r\nabout sounding some of the other impressed men of the ship in order to\r\ndiscover what basis, if any, there was for the emissary’s obscure\r\nsuggestions as to plotting disaffection aboard. Yes, the shrewd may so\r\nthink. But something more, or rather, something else than mere\r\nshrewdness is perhaps needful for the due understanding of such a\r\ncharacter as Billy Budd’s.\r\n\r\nAs to Claggart, the monomania in the man--if that indeed it were--as\r\ninvoluntarily disclosed by starts in the manifestations detailed, yet in\r\ngeneral covered over by his self-contained and rational demeanour; this,\r\nlike a subterranean fire, was eating its way deeper and deeper in him.\r\nSomething decisive must come of it.\r\n\r\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 2"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG6G6P016QTZ3FBSP47DNGG5","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG6FXSCNX5F3D880P3YP3PKR","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG2T49K0H5GDRB0G4YDTPG8H","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG6G8661BC47J4YGW4WN3G2K","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T03:48:18.241Z","ts":"2026-01-30T03:48:25.085Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}