The good American barque Skyscraper was swinging at her moorings in the Clyde, off Bannock, ready for sea. But that good American barque--although owned in Baltimore--had not a plank of American timber in her hulk, nor a native American in her crew, and even her nautical “goodness” had been called into serious question by divers of that crew during her voyage, and answered more or less inconclusively with belaying-pins, marlin-spikes, and ropes' ends at the hands of an Irish-American captain and a Dutch and Danish mate. So much so, that the mysterious powers of the American consul at St. Kentigern had been evoked to punish mutiny on the one hand, and battery and starvation on the other; both equally attested by manifestly false witness and subornation on each side. In the exercise of his functions the consul had opened and shut some jail doors, and otherwise effected the usual sullen and deceitful compromise, and his flag was now flying, on a final visit, from the stern sheets of a smart boat alongside. It was with a feeling of relief at the end of the interview that he at last lifted his head above an atmosphere of perjury and bilge-water and came on deck. The sun and wind were ruffling and glinting on the broadening river beyond the “measured mile”; a few gulls were wavering and dipping near the lee scuppers, and the sound of Sabbath bells, mellowed by a distance that secured immunity of conscience, came peacefully to his ear. “Now that job's over ye'll be takin' a partin' dhrink,” suggested the captain. The consul thought not. Certain incidents of “the job” were fresh in his memory, and he proposed to limit himself to his strict duty. “You have some passengers, I see,” he said, pointing to a group of two men and a young girl, who had apparently just come aboard. “Only wan; an engineer going out to Rio. Them's just his friends seein' him off, I'm thinkin',” returned the captain, surveying them somewhat contemptuously.