The revolver became the joke of the ship.  Cranze kept up a steady soak on king’s peg—­putting in a good three fingers of the liqueur brandy before filling up the tumbler with champagne—­and was naturally inclined to be argumentative.  Any one of the ship’s company who happened to be near him with a little time to spare would get up a discussion on any matter that came to his mind, work things gently to a climax, and then contradict Cranze flatly.  Upon which, out would come the revolver, and down would go the humorist on his knees, pitifully begging for pardon and life, to the vast amusement of the onlookers.

Pratt, the chief engineer, was the inventor of this game, but he openly renounced all patent rights.  He said that everybody on board ought to take the stage in turn—­he himself was quite content to retire on his early laurels.  So all hands took pains to contradict Cranze and to cower with a fine show of dramatic fright before his spiked revolver.

All the Flamingo’s company except one man, that is.  Frivolity of this sort in no way suited the appetite of Captain Owen Kettle.  He talked with Cranze with a certain dry cordiality.  And at times he contradicted him.  In fact the little sailor contradicted most passengers if he talked to them for long.  He was a man with strong opinions, and he regarded tolerance as mere weakness.  Moreover, Cranze’s chronic soaking nauseated him.  But at the same time, if his civility was scant, Cranze never lugged out the foolish weapon in his presence.  There was a something in the shipmaster’s eye which daunted him.  The utmost height to which his resentment could reach with Captain Kettle was a folding of the arms and a scowl which was intended to be majestic, but which was frequently spoiled by a hiccough.

In pleasant contrast to this weak, contemptible knave was the man Hamilton, his dupe and prospective victim.  For him Kettle formed a liking at once, though for the first days of the voyage it was little enough he saw of his actual presence.  Hamilton was a bad sailor and a lover of warmth, and as the Western Ocean was just then in one of its cold and noisy moods, this passenger went shudderingly out of the cabin when meals came on, and returned shudderingly from the cold on deck as soon they were over.

But when the Flamingo began to make her southing, and the yellow tangles of weed floating in emerald waves bore evidence that they were steaming against the warm current of the Gulf Stream, then Hamilton came into view.  He found a spot on the top of the fiddley under the lee of a tank where a chair could stand, and sat there in the glow of sun and boilers, and basked complacently.