undoubtedly is the prize
fool of the lot. Now, if there's one thing more than another I cannot
stand, it's a fool."

The commander of the _Siberian_ was not exactly a popular captain, a
fact perhaps readily accounted for by the prejudice we have just heard
him enunciate; yet he was more feared than disliked, for he was
possessed of a shrewd insight into character, and a keen and biting wit,
and those who came under its lash were not moved thereby precisely to
love its owner. But, withal, he was a genial and sociable man, ever
willing to promote and assist in the diversions of his passengers, as to
sports, theatricals, concerts, and the like; so, although a trifle
merciless towards those, and they were not few, whose ambition in life
seemed to consist in asking questions and making remarks of a stark
idiotic nature, he got on very well with his passengers on the whole.
Moreover, he was an excellent sailor, and, without being a martinet, was
a strict disciplinarian; consequently, in consideration of the comfort,
and shipshape readiness of the ordering of things on board the
_Siberian_, passengers who were capable of appreciation could forgive a
little sarcasm at the hands of her commander.

Those whom Captain Cheyne liked invariably returned the predilection,
those whom he disliked were sure not to remain unaware of the fact. And
out of a full complement of first-class passengers this voyage, the one
to whom he had taken most was Roden Musgrave; perhaps because of the
quality they held in common, a chronic cynicism and a rooted contempt
for the weaker-minded of their fellows--i.e., the bulk of human kind.
Anyhow, they would sit and exchange aphorisms and anecdotes illustrative
of this, until one of the other two or three passengers who almost
nightly participated in that snug and convivial gathering, was wont to
declare that it was like the sharpening of saws steeped in vinegar, to
sit and listen to Musgrave and the skipper in the latter's cabin an hour
or so before turning in.

"But if you don't know where this place is, how the deuce do you know
you've got to go ashore here, eh?" pursued the captain.

"Ha, ha! Because I don't want to, of course. Fancy you asking such a
question!"

"It may be nearer to go on to East London and land there. Here, I say,
Walker," he broke off, hailing an individual who, laden with bags and
bundles, was superintending the heaving of his heavier luggage into a
boat alongside; "whe