The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1901-05-10

| uu III Sttiu tliC htLAC oAlppCt,
you'll keep matches off and do every
thing for ventilation. This Welsh
GOALS as gassy as petroleum"
AYE, aye" rambled the mate. "But
| how about when heavy weather comes
and the decks are full of water?'
you'll have. fresh orders frlm me
before then. Get your hoses to work
now and sluice down. The ships a
pigsty."
AYE, aye. But the hands are dog
| tired"
''Then it's your place to drive them.
1 should have thought you'd been long
enough at sea to know that. But If
you aren't up to your business, just
say, and I'll swap you over with the
second mate right now"
The old mates face grew purple.
"If you want driver" he said, you
shall have one" And with that he
went his way and reused the tired
deckhands to work after the time hon
ored methods.
But If Captain Kettle did not spare
his crew he WAS equally hard on him
self. He was at sea now and wearing
| his seagoing conscience, which was an
entirely different piece of mental mech
anism from that which regulated his
actions ashore. He had received Mr..
| Gedge's precise instructions to run the
| coalboat in the ordinary method, and
he intended to do it relentlessly and to
| the letter. He had had his doubts
about Mr.. Gedge's real wishes before,
and even the episode of Miss Payne,
| the typewriter, had not altogether de-
| ceiyed him, but the second letter from
swell Wisher'' which the pilot brought
on board cleared the matter up beyond
q doubt. There was not the faintest
| chance that Gedge had written that;
there was not the faintest reason to
disbelieve now that Gedge wished his
uneconomical steamboat off his hands
and had arranged for her never again
to come into port
Now, properly approached-Say with
sealed orders to be opened only at sea-
1 think there is very little doubt that
Captain Kettle would have undertaken
to carry out this piece OF nefarious
business himself. The average mari
.ner thinks no more of making the in
surance pay" than the average traveller
does of robbing his fellow countrymen
by the Importation of Belgian cigars
and Tauchnitz novels from the channel
packet. And with Kettle. too, loyalty
to an employer, so long as that employ
er treated him squarely, ranked high.
But for a second time "Well Wisher''
had repeated the word "catspaw," and
for his purpose he could not have used
better spur.
he read it. by James,. he muttered,
''if that's the game he's trying to play
III make him rue i'll"
| However, though at the beginning OF
voyage it may be easy to make re,
solve like this. it in not SO easy to carry
into practical effect. If the machinery
was on board, human or otherwise, fol
making the Sultan of Labuan fail to
reach port, it was not at all probable
that Kettle would find it before he saw
it in working order. When arrange
ments for bit of barratry of this kind
are gone about nowadays, they are per.
formed with shrewdness. Your ingen.
ieus gentleman whe makes q devil of a
clockwork and gun cotton to blow out
q steamers bottom or makes a compact
with one of her crew to open the bilge
cocks is deXterous enough to cover up
his trail very completely, having a
wholesome awe of the law of the land
and n large distaste for penal servitude
Moreover, Owen Kettle was not the
; man to receive gratuitous information
on such point from his underlings
To begin with, he was the Sultan of
Labuan's captain, and by the immemo-
rial etiquette of the sea a ships cap.
tain is always a man socially apart
He is dictator for the time being
with supreme power of life and death
is addressed as "sir" and would be re-
garded with social awe and GOODNESS
by his own brother If the said brother
were on board as one of the mates OF
one of the assistant engineers. With
the chief engineer alone, although he
does not sit at meat with him, may a
merchant captain pnbend, and with
the chief of the Sultan OF l.abuan Ket-
tie had picked differences over a COM
mission on bunkering not ten minutes
after he had first stepped on board
He had the uadoubted knack Of com