O'Neil stretched himself out in one of Brennan's easy-chairs. "Really," he said, "I don't understand why a ship carries a captain. Now of what earthly use to the line are you, for instance, except for your beauty, which, no doubt, has its value with the women? I'll admit you preside with some grace at the best table in the dining-salon, but your officers know these channels as well as you do. They could make the run from Seattle to Juneau with their eyes shut." "Indeed they could not; and neither could I." "Oh, well, of course I have no respect for you as a man, having seen you without your uniform." The captain grinned in thorough enjoyment of this raillery. "I'll say nothing at all of my seamanship," he said, relapsing into the faintest of brogues, "but there's no denying that the master of a ship has many unpleasant and disgusting duties to perform. He has to amuse the prominent passengers who can't amuse themselves, for one thing, and that takes tact and patience. Why, some people make themselves at home on the bridge, in the chart-room, and even in my living-quarters, to say nothing of consuming my expensive wines, liquors, and cigars." "Meaning me?" "I'm a brutal seafaring man, and you'll have to make allowances for my well-known brusqueness. Maybe I did mean you. But I'll say that next to you Curtis Gordon is the worst grafter I ever saw." "You don't like Gordon, do you?" O'Neil queried with a change of tone. "I do not! He went up with me again this spring, and he had his widow with him, too." "His widow?" "You know who I mean--Mrs. Gerard. They say it's her money he's using in his schemes. Perhaps it's because of her that I don't like him." "Ah-h! I see." "You don't see, or you wouldn't grin like an ape. I'm a married man, I'll have you know, and I'm still on good terms with Mrs. Brennan, thank God. But I don't like men who use women's money, and that's just what our friend Gordon is doing. What money the widow didn't put up he's grabbed from the schoolma'ams and servant-girls and society matrons in the East. What has he got to show them for it?" "A railroad project, a copper-mine, some coal claims--" "Bah! A menagerie of wildcats!" "You can't prove that. What's your reason for distrusting him?"