Nat Goodwin's BookGoodwin, Nat. C. (Nathaniel Carll)
General
Nat Goodwin's Book
Goodwin, Nat. C. (Nathaniel Carll)
Actors -- Correspondence
By midnight we were back on board and off to Auckland. We arrived
seven days later after a most perilous journey. I have never seen such
storms as we encountered. The Pacific can pick up more trouble than two
Atlantic oceans. During the entire seven days we were thrown from one
side of the ship to the other with our trunks, hat boxes and valises.
We finally had to tie them down. It took two "ordinary" seamen to open
a handbag!
Captain Van Otterendorf, who apparently had taken a fancy to me, one
day after we were compelled to heave to and lie in the trough of the
sea, called me to his chart room.
"My tear Goodvin," he said, "ve are in a most precarious position. Ve
haf no more coal in de bunkers and ve are quietly drifting on to de
rocks vich are only about two hundred miles to de Vest. I vish ve were
farder avay from de land." I said, "I don't." He said, "Vell, I am now
burning de live stock for fuel and we vill put out de fires in about
an hour and hoist de mainsail." "Why didn't you do this two days ago
and save the coal?" I asked. "I didn't know how much ve started away
from Samoa vith until the purser yust told me," he replied. I looked at
him. "What do you tell me all this for? Don't you think I am frightened
enough without this information?" He replied, "Vell, I like you. No one
yet knows vat vill take place on de ocean and ve can only hope for de
best."
He pulled out a huge bottle of Scotch whiskey from somewhere and I
drank a goblet and in about an hour I didn't care whether the ship sank
or not. Luckily the next day the storm abated. We arrived at harbor of
Sydney.
_Chapter LIII_
PUBLICITY--ITS RESULTS
Before arranging my Australian tour (while I was engaged to the
Kentucky lady) I had planned to obtain a divorce in California by an
understanding with the second Mrs. Goodwin from whom I was then legally
separated. She gave her consent for a cash payment of twenty thousand
dollars. (Wives came high even in those days!)
When I decided to call off the engagement with the Kentucky lady the
divorce was nearly consummated and on my arrival at San Francisco my
attorneys informed me that everything was "O. K." If I came through
with the twenty thousand I would be free in forty-eight hours!
I was so dejected I did not care whether I was free or not and so
informed my lawyers. They told me that they had worked hard over
the case, that there would be no publicity (the suit was brought in
a remote town in lower California) and that I would better pay the
money and get it over. I complied with their arguments and sailed away
feeling as blue as the waters beneath me.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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