The story begins on dry land, which is rather unusual for one of Hodgson's nautical stories. Cargunka is in his office, peeling potatoes. He is also admiring his carefully formed curls in a mirror, reading poems of Byron, and listening to a phonograph. The phonograph plays a recording, on a wax cylinder, of a mournful song about a lost ship, the "Laughing Sally." Cargunka imagines himself as the captain of a ship lost forever at sea as well, and jots down his own rhymes inspired by the music. The third stanza begins: