“I sent word of it to the officers’ quarters in the Sailors’ Home,” he continued, while the limp in his gait seemed to grow more accentuated with the increasing irritation of his voice.  “Place’s full of them.  Twice as many men as there are berths going in the local trade.  All hungry for an easy job.  Twice as many—­and—­What d’you think, Whalley? . . .”

He stopped short; his hands clenched and thrust deeply downwards, seemed ready to burst the pockets of his jacket.  A slight sigh escaped Captain Whalley.

“Hey?  You would think they would be falling over each other.  Not a bit of it.  Frightened to go home.  Nice and warm out here to lie about a veranda waiting for a job.  I sit and wait in my office.  Nobody.  What did they suppose?  That I was going to sit there like a dummy with the Consul-General’s cable before me?  Not likely.  So I looked up a list of them I keep by me and sent word for Hamilton—­the worst loafer of them all—­and just made him go.  Threatened to instruct the steward of the Sailors’ Home to have him turned out neck and crop.  He did not think the berth was good enough—­if—­you—­please.  ’I’ve your little records by me,’ said I.  ’You came ashore here eighteen months ago, and you haven’t done six months’ work since.  You are in debt for your board now at the Home, and I suppose you reckon the Marine Office will pay in the end.  Eh?  So it shall; but if you don’t take this chance, away you go to England, assisted passage, by the first homeward steamer that comes along.  You are no better than a pauper.  We don’t want any white paupers here.’  I scared him.  But look at the trouble all this gave me.”

“You would not have had any trouble,” Captain Whalley said almost involuntarily, “if you had sent for me.”

Captain Eliott was immensely amused; he shook with laughter as he walked.  But suddenly he stopped laughing.  A vague recollection had crossed his mind.  Hadn’t he heard it said at the time of the Travancore and Deccan smash that poor Whalley had been cleaned out completely.  “Fellow’s hard up, by heavens!” he thought; and at once he cast a sidelong upward glance at his companion.  But Captain Whalley was smiling austerely straight before him, with a carriage of the head inconceivable in a penniless man—­and he became reassured.  Impossible.  Could not have lost everything.  That ship had been only a hobby of his.  And the reflection that a man who had confessed to receiving that very morning a presumably large sum of money was not likely to spring upon him a demand for a small loan put him entirely at his ease again.  There had come a long pause in their talk, however, and not knowing how to begin again, he growled out soberly, “We old fellows ought to take a rest now.”

“The best thing for some of us would be to die at the oar,” Captain Whalley said negligently.

“Come, now.  Aren’t you a bit tired by this time of the whole show?” muttered the other sullenly.