Captain Kettle, in his clumsy canoe, paddled up close to her and nodded, and gave the boat’s people a “good-morning.”  The greeting was quaintly enough out of place, but nobody seemed to notice that.  Each party was too occupied in staring at the other.  Those in the lifeboat saw a little lean European, naked to the waist, clad only in a turban and native cloth, and evidently (from the color of his skin) long inured to that state.  Kettle saw a huddle of fugitives, all of them scared, and many of them bloody with wounds.

The man who was steering the white boat, the steamer’s mate he was, according to the gold lace on his cuff, spoke first.

“Well,” he said, “you’re a funny enough looking beachcomber.  What do you want, anyway?”

Captain Kettle felt himself to redden all over under the tan of his skin.  Neatness in clothes was always a strong point with him, and he resented the barbarism of his present get-up acutely.  “If I wanted a job at teaching manners, I could find one in your boat, that’s certain,” was his prompt retort.  “And when I’d finished with that, I could give some of you a lesson in pluck without much harm being done.  I wonder if you call yourselves white men to let a crowd of niggers clear you out of your ship like that?”

“Now, look here, Robinson Crusoe,” said the man at the steering oar, “our tempers are all filed up on the raw edge just now, and if you give much lip, this boat will be rowed over the top of your Noah’s ark before you know what’s hit it.  You paddle back to your squaw and piccaninnies on the beach, Robinson, and don’t you come out here to mock your betters when they’re down on their luck.  We’ve nothing to give you except ugly words, and you’ll get them cheap.”

“Well, Mr. Mate,” said Kettle, “I haven’t heard white man’s English for a year, but if you can teach me anything new, I’m here to learn.  I’ve come across most kinds of failure in my time, but a white man who lets himself be kicked off his ship by a parcel of Krooboys, and who disgraces Great Britain by being a blooming Englishman, is a specimen that’s new to me.  But perhaps I’m making a mistake?  Perhaps you’re a Dutchman or a Dago that’s learnt the language?  Or perhaps, to judge from that cauliflower nose of yours, you’re something that’s escaped out of a freak museum?  You haven’t a photo about you by any chance?  I’d like to send one home to South Shields.  My Missis is a great hand at collecting curiosities which you only see in foreign parts.”

The mate bent on the steering gear with sudden violence, turned the lifeboat’s head with a swirl, and began sculling her toward the canoe.  But a tall, thin man sitting beside him in the stern-sheets said something to him in an undertone, and the Mate reluctantly let the oar drag limp in the water, and sat himself down, and ostentatiously made ready to roll a cigarette.

“Now, look here,” said the tall man, “I don’t suppose you want to quarrel.”