"The Manilla lottery has been eating him up."

He frowned a little, nodding in tiny affirmative jerks. They all were
going in for it; a third of the wages paid to ships' officers ("in my
port," he snorted) went to Manilla. It was a mania. That fellow Massy
had been bitten by it like the rest of them from the first; but after
winning once he seemed to have persuaded himself he had only to try
again to get another big prize. He had taken dozens and scores of
tickets for every drawing since. What with this vice and his ignorance
of affairs, ever since he had improvidently bought that steamer he had
been more or less short of money.

This, in Captain Eliott's opinion, gave an opening for a sensible
sailor-man with a few pounds to step in and save that fool from
the consequences of his folly. It was his craze to quarrel with his
captains. He had had some really good men too, who would have been too
glad to stay if he would only let them. But no. He seemed to think
he was no owner unless he was kicking somebody out in the morning and
having a row with the new man in the evening. What was wanted for him
was a master with a couple of hundred or so to take an interest in the
ship on proper conditions. You don't discharge a man for no fault, only
because of the fun of telling him to pack up his traps and go ashore,
when you know that in that case you are bound to buy back his share. On
the other hand, a fellow with an interest in the ship is not likely to
throw up his job in a huff about a trifle. He had told Massy that. He
had said: "'This won't do, Mr. Massy. We are getting very sick of you
here in the Marine Office. What you must do now is to try whether you
could get a sailor to join you as partner. That seems to be the only
way.' And that was sound advice, Harry."

Captain Whalley, leaning on his stick, was perfectly still all over, and
his hand, arrested in the act of stroking, grasped his whole beard. And
what did the fellow say to that?

The fellow had the audacity to fly out at the Master-Attendant. He had
received the advice in a most impudent manner. "I didn't come here to
be laughed at," he had shrieked. "I appeal to you as an Englishman and a
shipowner brought to the verge of ruin by an illegal conspiracy of your
beggarly sailors, and all you condescend to do for me is to tell me to
go and get a partner!" . . . The fellow had presumed to stamp with rage
on the floor of the private office. Where was he going to get