ofane. He seemed to take a delight in advertising his chronic
drunkenness, and between-whiles he made a silly show of the fact that he
carried a loaded revolver in his hip pocket. "Lots fellows do't now," he
explained. "Never know who-you-may-meet. S' a mos' useful habit."

Now Captain Kettle, in his inmost heart, considered that Cranze was
nerving himself up with drink to the committal of his horrid deed, and
so he took a very natural precaution. Before they had dropped the Irish
coast he had managed to borrow the revolver, unbeknown to its owner, and
carefully extracted the powder from the cartridges, replacing the
bullets for the sake of appearances. And as it happened, the chief
engineer, who was a married man as well as a humorist, though working
independently of his skipper, carried the matter still further. He, too,
got hold of the weapon, and brazed up the breech-block immovably, so
that it could not be surreptitiously reloaded. He said that his wife had
instructed him to take no chances, and that meanwhile, as a fool's
pendant, the revolver was as good as ever it had been.

The revolver became the joke of the ship. Cranze kept up a steady soak
on king's peg--putting in a good three fingers of the liqueur brandy
before filling up the tumbler with champagne--and was naturally inclined
to be argumentative. Any one of the ship's company who happened to be
near him with a little time to spare would get up a discussion on any
matter that came to his mind, work things gently to a climax, and then
contradict Cranze flatly. Upon which, out would come the revolver, and
down would go the humorist on his knees, pitifully begging for pardon
and life, to the vast amusement of the onlookers.

Pratt, the chief engineer, was the inventor of this game, but he openly
renounced all patent rights. He said that everybody on board ought to
take the stage in turn--he himself was quite content to retire on his
early laurels. So all hands took pains to contradict Cranze and to cower
with a fine show of dramatic fright before his spiked revolver.

All the _Flamingo's_ company except one man, that is. Frivolity of this
sort in no way suited the appetite of Captain Owen Kettle. He talked
with Cranze with a certain dry cordiality. And at times he contradicted
him. In fact the little sailor contradicted most passengers if he talked
to them for long. He was a man with strong opinions, and he regarded
tolerance as mere weakness. Moreover, Cr