The captain has this peculiarity—­he cannot tell the truth in a plausible way.  In this he is the very opposite of the austere Scot who sits midway of the table; he cannot tell a lie in an unplausible way.  When the captain finishes a statement the passengers glance at each other privately, as who should say, “Do you believe that?” When the Scot finishes one, the look says, “How strange and interesting.”  The whole secret is in the manner and method of the two men.  The captain is a little shy and diffident, and he states the simplest fact as if he were a little afraid of it, while the Scot delivers himself of the most abandoned lie with such an air of stern veracity that one is forced to believe it although one knows it isn’t so.  For instance, the Scot told about a pet flying-fish he once owned, that lived in a little fountain in his conservatory, and supported itself by catching birds and frogs and rats in the neighboring fields.  It was plain that no one at the table doubted this statement.

By and by, in the course of some talk about custom-house annoyances, the captain brought out the following simple everyday incident, but through his infirmity of style managed to tell it in such a way that it got no credence.  He said: 

“I went ashore at Naples one voyage when I was in that trade, and stood around helping my passengers, for I could speak a little Italian.  Two or three times, at intervals, the officer asked me if I had anything dutiable about me, and seemed more and more put out and disappointed every time I told him no.  Finally a passenger whom I had helped through asked me to come out and take something.  I thanked him, but excused myself, saying I had taken a whisky just before I came ashore.

“It was a fatal admission.  The officer at once made me pay sixpence import-duty on the whisky-just from ship to shore, you see; and he fined me L5 for not declaring the goods, another L5 for falsely denying that I had anything dutiable about me, also L5 for concealing the goods, and L50 for smuggling, which is the maximum penalty for unlawfully bringing in goods under the value of sevenpence ha’penny.  Altogether, sixty-five pounds sixpence for a little thing like that.”

The Scot is always believed, yet he never tells anything but lies; whereas the captain is never believed, although he never tells a lie, so far as I can judge.  If he should say his uncle was a male person, he would probably say it in such a way that nobody would believe it; at the same time the Scot could claim that he had a female uncle and not stir a doubt in anybody’s mind.  My own luck has been curious all my literary life; I never could tell a lie that anybody would doubt, nor a truth that anybody would believe.