This, in Captain Eliott’s opinion, gave an opening for a sensible sailor-man with a few pounds to step in and save that fool from the consequences of his folly.  It was his craze to quarrel with his captains.  He had had some really good men too, who would have been too glad to stay if he would only let them.  But no.  He seemed to think he was no owner unless he was kicking somebody out in the morning and having a row with the new man in the evening.  What was wanted for him was a master with a couple of hundred or so to take an interest in the ship on proper conditions.  You don’t discharge a man for no fault, only because of the fun of telling him to pack up his traps and go ashore, when you know that in that case you are bound to buy back his share.  On the other hand, a fellow with an interest in the ship is not likely to throw up his job in a huff about a trifle.  He had told Massy that.  He had said:  “’This won’t do, Mr. Massy.  We are getting very sick of you here in the Marine Office.  What you must do now is to try whether you could get a sailor to join you as partner.  That seems to be the only way.’  And that was sound advice, Harry.”

Captain Whalley, leaning on his stick, was perfectly still all over, and his hand, arrested in the act of stroking, grasped his whole beard.  And what did the fellow say to that?

The fellow had the audacity to fly out at the Master-Attendant.  He had received the advice in a most impudent manner.  “I didn’t come here to be laughed at,” he had shrieked.  “I appeal to you as an Englishman and a shipowner brought to the verge of ruin by an illegal conspiracy of your beggarly sailors, and all you condescend to do for me is to tell me to go and get a partner!” . . .  The fellow had presumed to stamp with rage on the floor of the private office.  Where was he going to get a partner?  Was he being taken for a fool?  Not a single one of that contemptible lot ashore at the “Home” had twopence in his pocket to bless himself with.  The very native curs in the bazaar knew that much. . . .  “And it’s true enough, Harry,” rumbled Captain Eliott judicially.  “They are much more likely one and all to owe money to the Chinamen in Denham Road for the clothes on their backs.  ‘Well,’ said I, ’you make too much noise over it for my taste, Mr. Massy.  Good morning.’  He banged the door after him; he dared to bang my door, confound his cheek!”

The head of the Marine department was out of breath with indignation; then recollecting himself as it were, “I’ll end by being late to dinner—­yarning with you here . . . wife doesn’t like it.”

He clambered ponderously into the trap; leaned out sideways, and only then wondered wheezily what on earth Captain Whalley could have been doing with himself of late.  They had had no sight of each other for years and years till the other day when he had seen him unexpectedly in the office.

What on earth . . .

Captain Whalley seemed to be smiling to himself in his white beard.