picked up a pilot, who, after the
custom of his class, stepped up over the side with a hard felt hat on
his head, and a complete wardrobe, and a selection of daily papers in
his pocket.

"Well, pilot, what's the news?" said Kettle, as the man of narrow waters
swung himself up on to the bridge, and his boat swirled away astern.

"You are," said the pilot. "The papers are just full of you, Captain,
all of them, from the _Shipping Telegraph_ to the London _Times_. The
Cunard boat brought in the yarn. A pilot out of my schooner took
her up."

"How do they spell the name? Cuttle?"

"Well, I think it's 'Kattle' mostly, though one paper has it 'Kelly.'"

"Curse their cheek," said the little sailor, flushing. "I'd like to get
hold of some of those blowsy editors that come smelling round the dock
after yarns and drink, and wring their necks."

"Starboard a point," said the pilot, and when the quartermaster at the
wheel had duly repeated the course, he turned to Kettle with some
amusement. "Blowsy or not, they don't seem to have done you much harm
this journey, Captain. Why, they're getting up subscriptions for you all
round. Shouldn't wonder but what the Board of Trade even stands you a
pair of binoculars."

"I'm not a blessed mendicant," said Kettle stiffly, "and as for the
Board of Trade, they can stick their binoculars up their trousers." He
walked to the other end of the bridge, and stood there chewing savagely
at the butt end of his cigar.

"Rum bloke," commented the pilot to himself, though aloud he offered no
comment, being a man whose business it was to keep on good terms with
everybody. So he dropped his newspapers to one of the mates, and applied
himself to the details of the pilotage.

Still, the pilot was right in saying that England was ringing with the
news of Kettle's feat. The passengers of the Cunarder, with nothing much
else to interest them, had come home thrilled and ringing with it. A
smart New Yorker had got a "scoop" by slipping ashore at Queenstown and
cabling a lavish account to the American Press Association, so that the
first news reached London from the States. Followed Reuter's man and the
Liverpool reporters on Prince's landing-stage, who came to glean copy as
in the ordinary course of events, and they being spurred on by wires
from London for full details, got down all the facts available, and
imagined others. Parliament was not sitting, and there had been no
newspaper sensation for a we