e I've got no pride? Why can't they let me alone? If the
_Grosser Carl_ people pay up for that cargo, that's all I want."

But the eternal healer, Time, soothed matters down wonderfully. Captain
Owen Kettle's week's outing in the daily papers ran its course with due
thrills and headlines, and then the Press forgot him, and rushed on to
the next sensation. By the time the subscription list had closed and
been brought together, the _Flamingo_ had sailed for her next slow round
trip in the Mexican Gulf, and when her captain returned to find a curt,
formal letter from a firm of bankers, stating that L2,400 had been
placed to his credit in their establishment, he would have been more
than human if he had refused it. And, as a point of fact, after
consulting with Madam, his wife, he transformed it into houses in that
terrace of narrow dwellings in Birkenhead which represented the rest of
his savings.

Now on paper this house property was alleged by a sanguine agent to
produce at the rate of L15 per annum apiece, and as there were
thirty-six houses, this made an income--on paper--of well over L500 a
year, the which is a very nice possession.

A thing, moreover, which Captain Kettle had prophesied had come to pass.
The "trade connection" in the Mexican Gulf had been very seriously
damaged. As was somewhat natural, the commercial gentry there did not
relish having their valuable cargo pitched unceremoniously to Neptune,
and preferred to send what they had by boats which did not contrive to
meet burning emigrant liners. This, of course, was quite unreasonable of
them, but one can only relate what happened.

And then the second part of the prophecy evolved itself naturally.
Messrs. Bird discovered from the last indent handed them that more paint
had been used over the _Flamingo's_ fabric than they thought consistent
with economy, and so they relieved Captain Kettle from the command,
handed him their check for wages due--there was no commission to be
added for such an unsatisfactory voyage as this last--and presented him
gratis with their best wishes for his future welfare.

Kettle had thought of telling the truth in print, but the mysterious law
of libel, which it is written that all mariners shall dread and never
understand, scared him; and besides, he was still raw from his recent
week's outing in the British Press. So he just went and gave his views
to Mr. Isaac Bird personally and privately, threw the ink-bottle through
t