"Shouldn't wonder if the old man hasn't been stealing something and was getting away from the galley. He's the biggest reprobate that ever shipped--and that's saying something. No, he isn't my property exactly. I've got a notion that he owns the ship. Gathered that from the way he goes round after six bells to see the lights out. The chief engineer says he built the engines. Anyway, the old man sits in the engine-room and sort of keeps an eye on the boilers. He was on the ship before I joined her--that's seven years ago, when we were running up and down and around and about the China Seas." Erastasius, his back to the company, was busied in cleaning his disarranged fur. He licked and swore alternately. The ventilator incident had hurt his feelings sorely. "He knows we are talking about him," continued the Captain. "He's a responsible kind o' critter. That's natural when you come to think that he has saved a quarter of a million of dollars. At present his wants are few--guess he would like a netting over those ventilators first thing--but some day he'll begin to live up to his capital." "Saved a quarter of a million dollars! What securities did he invest 'em in?" said a man from Foochow. "Here, in this bottom. He saved the _Whanghoa_ with a full cargo of tea, silk and opium, and thirteen thousand dollars in bar silver. Yes; that's about the extent of the old man's savings. I commanded. The old man was the rescuer, and I was more grateful to him 'cause it was my darned folly that nearly brought us into the trouble. I was new to these waters, new to the Chinaman and his fascinating little ways, being a New England man by raising. Erastasius was raised by the Devil. That's who his sire was. Never ran across his dam. Ran across a forsaken sea, though, in the _Whanghoa_, a little to the northeast of this, with eight hundred steerage passengers, all Chinamen, for various and undenominated ports. Had the pleasure of sending eighteen of 'em into the water. Yes, that's so, isn't it, old man?" Erastasius finished licking himself and mewed affirmatively. "Yes, we carried four white officers--a Westerner, two Vermont men, and myself. There were ten Americans, a couple of Danes and a half-caste knocking round the ship, and the crew were Chinese, but most of 'em good Chinese. Only good Chinese I ever met. We had our steerage passengers 'tween-decks. Most of 'em lay around and played dominoes or smoked opium. We had bad weather at the start, and the steerage were powerful sick. I judged they would have no insides to them when the weather lifted, so I didn't put any guards on them. Wanted all my men to work the ship. Engines rotten as Congress, and under sail half the time. Next time I carry Chinese steerage trash I'll hire a Gatling and mount it on the 'tween-decks hatch.