“Poor devil! yes, I know. That _Doge of Venice_ case was an awful scandal. Owners filled up the Board of Trade surveyor to the teeth with champagne, or she’d never have been passed to sea. As it was, she’d such an unholy reputation that two crews ran from her before they could get her manned. She was as rotten as rust and tumbled rivets could make her, and she was sent to sea as a coffin ship to earn her dividends out of Lloyds’. Kettle had been out of a job for some time. He was a desperate man, with a family depending on him, and he went as skipper, fully conscious of what was expected of him. He did it like a man. He let the _Doge of Venice_ founder in a North Sea gale, and, by a marvelous chance, managed to save his ship’s company. At the inquiry, of course, he was made scapegoat, and he didn’t contrive to save his ticket. They suspended his master’s certificate for a year. On the strength of that he applied to owners for maintenance, putting it on the reasonable claim of services rendered. Owners, being upright merchants and sensible men, naturally repudiated all knowledge or liability; said he was a blackmailing scoundrel as well as an unskilful seaman; and threatened him with an action for libel. Kettle, not having a solitary proof to show, did the only thing left for him to do, and that was eat dirt or subside. But the incident and the subsequent starvation haven’t tended to sweeten his temper. Latterly he’s been serving as mate on a Pacific ship, and he was just a terror with his men. He simply kept alive by carrying his fist on a revolver-butt. There isn’t a man who’s served with Red Kettle three weeks that wouldn’t have cheerfully swung for the enjoyment of murdering him.” “You appear to know a good deal about this man.” “When it suits my purpose,” returned Onslow drily, “I mostly contrive to know something about anybody. However, it’s no use discussing the poor beggar any longer. What’s amiss with having him in now?” Shelf touched one of the electric buttons which studded the edge of his table, and a clerk appeared, who went away again, and shortly returned. With him was a dried-up little man of about forty, with a red head and a peaked red beard, who made a stiff, nervous salaam to Mr. Theodore Shelf, and then turned to stare at Onslow with puckered amazement. Onslow nodded and laughed. “Been carrying any more pilgrims from Port Saïd to the Morocco coast on iron decks?” he asked. “I never did that,” snapped Captain Kettle. “Ah, one’s memory fails at times. I dare say also you forget a water famine when the condenser broke down, and a trifling affray with knuckledusters and other toys; and a dash of cholera; and nine dead bodies of Hadjis which went overboard? Perhaps, too, you don’t remember fudging a clean bill of health, and baksheeshing certain officials of his Shereefian Majesty?” “No,” said Captain Kettle sourly, “I don’t remember.”