CHAPTER XXIV.  A HARD BARGAIN.

The ship which thus appeared before the castaways had long “tramped” the ocean, wandering from one port to another as freights offered.  She was two years out from London, by the Cape of Good Hope, India, and the Archipelago; and was now bound for San Francisco in the hope of working homeward round the Horn.  Her captain was one Jacob Trent.  He had retired some five years before to a suburban cottage, a patch of cabbages, a gig, and the conduct of what he called a Bank.  The name appears to have been misleading.  Borrowers were accustomed to choose works of art and utility in the front shop; loaves of sugar and bolts of broadcloth were deposited in pledge; and it was a part of the manager’s duty to dash in his gig on Saturday evenings from one small retailer’s to another, and to annex in each the bulk of the week’s takings.  His was thus an active life, and to a man of the type of a rat, filled with recondite joys.  An unexpected loss, a law suit, and the unintelligent commentary of the judge upon the bench, combined to disgust him of the business.  I was so extraordinarily fortunate as to find, in an old newspaper, a report of the proceedings in Lyall v.  The Cardiff Mutual Accommodation Banking Co.  “I confess I fail entirely to understand the nature of the business,” the judge had remarked, while Trent was being examined in chief; a little after, on fuller information—­“They call it a bank,” he had opined, “but it seems to me to be an unlicensed pawnshop”; and he wound up with this appalling allocution:  “Mr. Trent, I must put you on your guard; you must be very careful, or we shall see you here again.”  In the inside of a week the captain disposed of the bank, the cottage, and the gig and horse; and to sea again in the Flying Scud, where he did well and gave high satisfaction to his owners.  But the glory clung to him; he was a plain sailor-man, he said, but he could never long allow you to forget that he had been a banker.

His mate, Elias Goddedaal, was a huge viking of a man, six feet three and of proportionate mass, strong, sober, industrious, musical, and sentimental.  He ran continually over into Swedish melodies, chiefly in the minor.  He had paid nine dollars to hear Patti; to hear Nilsson, he had deserted a ship and two months’ wages; and he was ready at any time to walk ten miles for a good concert, or seven to a reasonable play.  On board he had three treasures:  a canary bird, a concertina, and a blinding copy of the works of Shakespeare.  He had a gift, peculiarly Scandinavian, of making friends at sight:  an elemental innocence commended him; he was without fear, without reproach, and without money or the hope of making it.

Holdorsen was second mate, and berthed aft, but messed usually with the hands.