gh every engine-room
afloat belonging to the colony. Then suddenly, "What do you think
happened, Harry?"

Captain Whalley, who seemed lost in a mental effort as of doing a sum
in his head, gave a slight start. He really couldn't imagine. The
Master-Attendant's voice vibrated dully with hoarse emphasis. The man
actually had the luck to win the second prize in the Manilla lottery.
All these engineers and officers of ships took tickets in that gamble.
It seemed to be a perfect mania with them all.

Everybody expected now that he would take himself off home with his
money, and go to the devil in his own way. Not at all. The Sofala,
judged too small and not quite modern enough for the sort of trade
she was in, could be got for a moderate price from her owners, who had
ordered a new steamer from Europe. He rushed in and bought her. This man
had never given any signs of that sort of mental intoxication the mere
fact of getting hold of a large sum of money may produce--not till he
got a ship of his own; but then he went off his balance all at once:
came bouncing into the Marine Office on some transfer business, with his
hat hanging over his left eye and switching a little cane in his hand,
and told each one of the clerks separately that "Nobody could put him
out now. It was his turn. There was no one over him on earth, and there
never would be either." He swaggered and strutted between the desks,
talking at the top of his voice, and trembling like a leaf all the
while, so that the current business of the office was suspended for the
time he was in there, and everybody in the big room stood open-mouthed
looking at his antics. Afterwards he could be seen during the hottest
hours of the day with his face as red as fire rushing along up and down
the quays to look at his ship from different points of view: he seemed
inclined to stop every stranger he came across just to let them know
"that there would be no longer anyone over him; he had bought a ship;
nobody on earth could put him out of his engine-room now."

Good bargain as she was, the price of the Sofala took up pretty near all
the lottery-money. He had left himself no capital to work with. That did
not matter so much, for these were the halcyon days of steam
coasting trade, before some of the home shipping firms had thought of
establishing local fleets to feed their main lines. These, when once
organized, took the biggest slices out of that cake, of course; and
by-and-by a