oice of his old chum had not changed so very
much--that the man was the same. Not a bad fellow the pleasant, jolly
Ned Eliott, friendly, well up to his business--and always a bit of a
humbug. He remembered how he used to amuse his poor wife. She could read
him like an open book. When the Condor and the Ringdove happened to be
in port together, she would frequently ask him to bring Captain Eliott
to dinner. They had not met often since those old days. Not once in five
years, perhaps. He regarded from under his white eyebrows this man he
could not bring himself to take into his confidence at this juncture;
and the other went on with his intimate outpourings, and as remote from
his hearer as though he had been talking on a hill-top a mile away.

He was in a bit of a quandary now as to the steamer Sofala. Ultimately
every hitch in the port came into his hands to undo. They would miss
him when he was gone in another eighteen months, and most likely some
retired naval officer had been pitchforked into the appointment--a man
that would understand nothing and care less. That steamer was a coasting
craft having a steady trade connection as far north as Tenasserim; but
the trouble was she could get no captain to take her on her regular
trip. Nobody would go in her. He really had no power, of course, to
order a man to take a job. It was all very well to stretch a point on
the demand of a consul-general, but . . .

"What's the matter with the ship?" Captain Whalley interrupted in
measured tones.

"Nothing's the matter. Sound old steamer. Her owner has been in my
office this afternoon tearing his hair."

"Is he a white man?" asked Whalley in an interested voice.

"He calls himself a white man," answered the Master-Attendant scornfully;
"but if so, it's just skin-deep and no more. I told him that to his face
too."

"But who is he, then?"

"He's the chief engineer of her. See _that_, Harry?"

"I see," Captain Whalley said thoughtfully. "The engineer. I see."

How the fellow came to be a shipowner at the same time was quite a
tale. He came out third in a home ship nearly fifteen years ago, Captain
Eliott remembered, and got paid off after a bad sort of row both with
his skipper and his chief. Anyway, they seemed jolly glad to get rid of
him at all costs. Clearly a mutinous sort of chap. Well, he remained out
here, a perfect nuisance, everlastingly shipped and unshipped, unable
to keep a berth very long; pretty nigh went throu