anze's chronic soaking nauseated
him. But at the same time, if his civility was scant, Cranze never
lugged out the foolish weapon in his presence. There was a something in
the shipmaster's eye which daunted him. The utmost height to which his
resentment could reach with Captain Kettle was a folding of the arms and
a scowl which was intended to be majestic, but which was frequently
spoiled by a hiccough.

In pleasant contrast to this weak, contemptible knave was the man
Hamilton, his dupe and prospective victim. For him Kettle formed a
liking at once, though for the first days of the voyage it was little
enough he saw of his actual presence. Hamilton was a bad sailor and a
lover of warmth, and as the Western Ocean was just then in one of its
cold and noisy moods, this passenger went shudderingly out of the cabin
when meals came on, and returned shudderingly from the cold on deck as
soon they were over.

But when the _Flamingo_ began to make her southing, and the yellow
tangles of weed floating in emerald waves bore evidence that they were
steaming against the warm current of the Gulf Stream, then Hamilton came
into view. He found a spot on the top of the fiddley under the lee of a
tank where a chair could stand, and sat there in the glow of sun and
boilers, and basked complacently.

He was a shy, nervous little man, and though Kettle had usually a fine
contempt for all weakness, somehow his heart went out to this retiring
passenger almost at first sight. Myself, I am inclined to think it was
because he knew him to be hunted, knew him to be the object of a
murderous conspiracy, and loathed most thoroughly the vulgar rogue who
was his treacherous enemy. But Captain Kettle scouts the idea that he
was stirred by any such feeble, womanish motives. Kettle was a poet
himself, and with the kinship of species he felt the poetic fire glowing
out from the person of this Mr. Hamilton. At least, so he says; and if
he has deceived himself on the matter, which, from an outsider's point
of view, seems likely, I am sure the error is quite unconscious. The
little sailor may have his faults, as the index of these pages has
shown; but untruthfulness has never been set down to his tally, and I am
not going to accuse him of it now.

Still, it is a sure thing that talk on the subject of verse making did
not come at once. Kettle was immensely sensitive about his
accomplishment, and had writhed under brutal scoffs and polished
ridicule at h