"Understand that no one knows who done it, you dog," said Smith, reaching for what he called his "pants," "but if any one done it, it was you. And don't you forget it. I hire you to do the work, and I'll see you does it. Don't get me mad, or you'll be runnin' to the penitentiary howlin' for ten years to get away from me." And Billy went back to Tom. "He's fair luny, that's what he is. But if he reckons I'm goin' to the calaboose for him, he'll run up agin a snag." And presently Smith came out to breakfast with a face as black as a near cyclone. Billy and Tom jumped when he spoke, and all those men in his house who were in a lee shore, as regards dollars, got away from him and adorned a neighbouring fence. "What's wrong wiv Shang'ai?" asked a Londoner; "'es a black 'un, but I never seed 'im so rorty as this!" And no one answered him. They were a sick crowd at any time, and now, when their slave-owner roared, their hearts were in their boots. But Smith was only trying to keep up his own courage. Not once, but many times since he had got even with the man who had given him a thrashing, he had regretted his method of revenge. "I'd best have bashed him and left him laying on the Front," said Smith, "and here's Tom and Bill know the whole racket. I've half a mind to have them put out of the way. In such a place as this, who _can_ a man trust? Bah, it sickens me, it does. It fair sickens me." He was virtuously indignant with an ungrateful world. Even his revenge had been a failure. How in the name of all that was holy and unholy had the admiral managed to rise from the foc'sle to the command of the _California_? "And I thought Blaker and Simpson was both men!" said Smith with disgust. "There ain't any trustin' to appearances, nor to reputation neither. But how could the swine have done it?" An early evening paper had the whole story, and as Shanghai was still up town, all his crowd of crimps and slaves roared over the yarn. "He fo't the mate and was give 'is billet," said one. "I say, but old Blaker was a sport. That's real old Western Ocean packet law. And then Blaker went luny with psalm singing and the hadmiral locked 'im up. 'Strewth, but it must 'ave bin a picnic! I'd 'ave give a month's wages to see the show. But 'oo was it shang'aied a hadmiral?" He spoke with bated breath. "Who'd it be but Smith?" asked the speaker's mate sulkily. "He's a devil, a notorious devil, as _we_ know. He'd shanghai his father for a quarter, if he was dry. And a month back my own brother that shipped in the _Cyrus J. Brown_ told me as Shanghai had a down on this very man." "Then I wouldn't be Smith for all 'is money. This'll be a Government business." It would have been if the admiral had been any other kind of man. But Admiral Sir Richard Dunn was one of those, and they get rarer every day, who prefer handling their own affairs. He had a gift of humour, too, and was mightily pleased with himself.