“Some Insignificant Boy, from the borderlands, from an out-of-the way province, from some place called Poland, became a captain in the British Merchant Marine without any backing.” Thus Conrad supposedly described himself in 1914 in an interview for Tygodnik Ilustrowany. What difference “backing” could have made is difficult to imagine. Anyway, the title did not bring any income by itself. Bobrowski was worried about his nephew’s financial situation: “From what you tell me, I see you are a protector of widows and invest their capital well. This is very noble, but for God’s sake think of yours also.” Unfortunately we do not know who the widows in question were.

The new subject of Queen Victoria did not cease to be a subject of Tsar Alexander III; to obtain release from this honor one had to ask, politely and persistently. So Korzeniowski paid a visit to the Russian Embassy—the first of many visits, for the matter was to drag on for a long time; the embassy building, not on non-existent Chesham Square but in the easily identified Chesham House on Belgrave Square, was later recalled in The Secret Agent.

It took Korzeniowski six weeks from his last employment to find another job, one that lasted only five days but provided an opportunity to visit the Kliszczewskis. On 28 December he signed as second mate on an iron frigate, the Falconhurst, in which he sailed for £5 from London to Penarth, where he signed off on 2 January 1887. He may have planned a longer voyage in that ship, but at last an opening presented itself for the position of first mate on an iron barque of 1,040 tons, the Highland Forest, lying in the port of Amsterdam.

He signed the articles at £7 a month on 16 February, but, according to The Mirror of the Sea, he had begun work earlier, watching over the loading of cargo delayed by a severe frost, an infrequent occurrence in Holland.