Kettle turned on his companion with a sudden viciousness.  “By James!” he snapped, “you better take care of your-words, or there’ll be a man in this smoke-room with a broken jaw.  I allow no one to sling slights at either me or my ship.  No, nor at the firm either that owns both of us.  You needn’t look round at the young lady behind the bar.  She can’t hear what we’re saying across in this corner, and if even she could she’s quite welcome to know how I think about the matter.  By James, do you think you can speak to me as if I was a common railway director?  I can tell you that, as Captain of a passenger boat, I’ve a very different social position.”

“My dear sir,” said Lupton soothingly, “to insult you was the last thing in my mind.  I quite know you’ve got a fine ship, and a new ship, and a ship to be congratulated on.  I’ve seen her.  In fact I was on board and all over her only this morning.  But what I meant to point out was (although I seem to have put it clumsily) that Messrs. Bird have chosen to schedule you for the lesser frequented Gulf ports, finding, as you hint, that cargo pays them better than passengers.”

“Well?”

“And naturally therefore anything that was done on the Flamingo would not have the same fierce light of publicity on it that would get on—­say—­one of the Royal Mail boats.  You see they bustle about between busy ports crammed with passengers who are just at their wits’ end for something to do.  You know what a pack of passengers are.  Give them a topic like this:  Young man with expectations suddenly knocked overboard, nobody knows by whom; ’nother young man on boat drawing a heavy insurance from him; and they aren’t long in putting two and two together.”

“You seem to think it requires a pretty poor brain to run a steam-packet,” said Kettle contemptuously.  “How long would I be before I had that joker in irons?”

“If he did it as openly as I have said, you’d arrest him at once.  But you must remember Cranze will have been thinking out his game for perhaps a year beforehand, till he can see absolutely no flaw in it, till he thinks, in fact, there’s not the vaguest chance of being dropped on.  If anything happens to Hamilton, his dear friend Cranze will be the last man to be suspected of it.  And mark you, he’s a clever chap.  It isn’t your clumsy, ignorant knave who turns insurance robber—­and incidentally murderer.”

“Still, I don’t see how he’d be better off on my ship than he would be on the bigger passenger packets.”

“Just because you won’t have a crowd of passengers.  Captain, a ship’s like a woman; any breath of scandal damages her reputation,-whether it’s true and deserved or not.  And a ship-captain’s like a woman’s husband; he’ll put up with a lot to keep any trace of scandal away from her.”

“That’s the holy truth.”