well as his own. A
mate in the mercantile marine is officially an officer and some fraction
of a gentleman, but on tramp steamers and liners where cargo is of more
account than passengers--even when they dine at half-past six, instead
of at midday--a mate has to perform manual labors rather harder than
that accomplished by any three regular deck hands.

I do not intend to imply that Kettle actually drove a winch, or acted
as stevedore below, or sweated over bales as they swung up through a
hatch, but he did work as gangway man, and serve at the tally desk, and
oversee generally while the crew worked cargo; and his watch over the
passengers was at this period of necessity relaxed. He tried hard to
interest Hamilton in the mysteries of hold stowage, in order to keep him
under his immediate eye. But Hamilton bluntly confessed to loathing
anything that was at all useful, and so he perforce had to be left to
pick his own position under the awnings, there to doze, and smoke
cigarettes, and scribble on paper as the moods so seized him.

It was off one of the ports in the peninsula of Yucatan, toward the Bay
of Campeachy, that Cranze chose to fall overboard. The name of the place
was announced by some one when they brought up, and Cranze asked where
it was. Kettle marked it off with a leg of the dividers on the chart.
"Yucatan," said Cranze, "that's the ruined cities shop, isn't it?"--He
shaded his unsteady eyes, and looked out at a clump of squalid huts just
showing on the beach beyond some three miles of tumbling surf. "Gum!
here's a ruined city all hot and waiting. Home of the ancient Aztecs,
and colony of the Atlanteans, and all that. Skipper, I shall go ashore,
and enlarge my mind."

"You can go if you like," said Kettle, "but remember, I steam away from
here as soon as ever I get the cargo out of her, and I wait for no man.
And mind not to get us upset in the surf going there. The water round
here swarms with sharks, and I shouldn't like any of them to get
indigestion."

"Seem trying to make yourself jolly ob--bub--jectiable's morning,"
grumbled Cranze, and invited Hamilton to accompany him on shore
forthwith. "Let's go and see the girls. Ruined cities should have ruined
girls and ruined pubs to give us some ruined amusement. We been on this
steamer too long, an' we want variety. V'riety's charming. Come along
and see ruined v'riety."

Hamilton shrugged his shoulders. "Drunk as usual, are you? You silly
owl, whatev