he and the cook would again calculate in detail the cost of keeping
up the steamer, becoming terrified on reaching the total. One day
without moving was costing more than the two men could earn in a month.

"This can't go on!" Toni would protest.

His indignation took him ashore several times in search of the captain.
He was afraid to speak to him, considering it a lack of discipline to
meddle in the management of the boat, so he invented the most absurd
pretext in order to run afoul of Ferragut.

He looked with antipathy at the porter of the _albergo_ because he
always told him that the captain had just gone out. This individual
with the air of a procurer must be greatly to blame for the
immovability of the steamer; his heart told him so.

Because he couldn't come to blows with the man, and because he could
not stand seeing him laugh deceitfully while watching him wait hour
after hour in the vestibule, he took up his station in the street,
spying on Ferragut's entrances and exits.

The three times that he did succeed in speaking with the captain, the
result was always the same. The captain was as greatly delighted to see
him as if he were an apparition from the past with whom he could
communicate the joy of his overflowing happiness.

He would listen to his mate, congratulating himself that all was going
so well on the ship, and when Toni, in stuttering tones, would venture
to ask the date of departure, Ulysses would hide his uncertainty under
a tone of prudence. He was awaiting a most valuable cargo; the longer
they waited for it, the more money they were going to gain.... But his
words were not convincing to Toni. He remembered the captain's protests
fifteen days before over the lack of good cargo in Naples, and his
desire to leave without loss of time.

Upon returning aboard, the mate would at once hunt Caragol, and both
would comment on the changes in their chief. Toni had found him an
entirely different man, with beard shaved, wearing his best clothes,
and displaying in the arrangement of his person a most minute nicety, a
decided wish to please. The rude pilot had even come to believe that he
had detected, while talking to him, a certain feminine perfume like
that of their blonde visitor.

This news was the most unbelievable of all for Caragol.

"Captain Ferragut perfumed!... The captain scented!... The wretch!" And
he threw up his arms, his blind eyes seeking the brandy bottles and the
oil flasks, in