Now, Captain Image was not in the least degree a snob, and he did not take even first-class passengers on their face value. As he would explain to intimates, he was not out on the Coast for his health; he very much wished to be able some day to retire on a competency, and grow cabbages outside of Cardiff; and so he dispensed his affability on a nicely regulated scale. If a man could influence cargo in the direction of the _M'poso_, Captain Image was ready at all times to extend to him the rough red hand of friendship, and to supply gin cocktails and German champagne till conversation flowed into the desired commercial channel. He called this casting bread upon the waters, and could always rely on getting the prime cost back in commission. But he was no man to waste either his good liquor or his pearls of speech on a mere fifty-pound-a-year clerk, with a red head, who would very possibly be dead before the _M'poso's_ next call, and who certainly could influence no cargo for the next two years to come. So from the day they left Liverpool to the day when the steamer's forefoot scraped at her cable off Malla-Nulla beach, Captain Image had not condescended to offer that particular second-class passenger so much as a morning nod. But Captain Image was kindly enough in the West African way, and when he had drunk his morning cocktail and gone through the Purser's papers, he came out of the chart-house again and produced from his pyjama pocket a half-filled box of pills. "There, my lad," he said to Carter, as he made the presentation, "you take one of those according to the directions on the lid, when required, and you'll have your health kept in a repair that will surprise you. Now, mark me well; you'll be tempted with other brands of pills; old Swiz--I mean Mr. Smith, your boss, is a regular crank on drugs; but as sure as you tip other medicines down into your inside, my pills will get hindered at their proper work, and you'll be knocked over." "Thanks," said Carter. "But I always understood----" "I'm sure you did. Now there's one other thing I want to impress on you, my lad. Your duty is to get on, and the way to do that is to scratch up cargo and send it home by the _M'poso_. You see, my lad, I've got more influence with O'Neill and Craven than any other captain on the Coast (though you needn't go and stir up mischief by spreading that about), and if you keep yourself in my memory by the way Malla-Nulla ships cargo by me, I'll let them fully understand at the home office that services like yours want a big raise in salary. There, don't you bother to thank me, my lad, and just you stow that box of pills where they won't get lost if you're spilt going ashore through that surf. It's a mighty bad beach to-day."