Commander Birch was a trifle uneasy when he found there was more than a popple on the sea; it was, in fact, distinctly choppy.

Significantly, the setting is a gaff, a low, illegal theatre, and not one of the legitimate East-End stages.

To watch it even once is to be distracted, but in an evocative and resonant manner--to be drawn away from Benning's travels and alienations and reminded of one's own.

The person who left at 1:00 is either Alice or the woman who played chemin de fer (9), so in either case she is a woman.