The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, January 21, 1906, Page 4

THE 'SAN FRANCISCO SUNDAY CALL HE = ~ TSR/ s \b Y AL T OO OOOLOOSIOSSSS GG This story published to-day the Iceberg—is ¥ ~The Liner he elghth weries of thrill- ¥ sea stories by Cuteliffie 2 Hyne detalling “The Ad- % ures of Captain Kettle” X you want something that arm the blood and Mft $ the dead level of commonplaceness, out of these stirring ex- E: . of Captain Kettle. § ne complete story of mdvea- 3 ure appear every week p Cail until the 4 fon are all in thing that the LINE CEBERG HYNE © & ¥ ] pltchforked by the fates and Mr, Carn- forth, end at first he found the position bewilderingly strange. He was 37 years of age, and it was his debut.as an ofi- on a passenger boat. The whole routine was new to him. Even the deckhands were of a class strange to his experience, and did as they were bidden smartly and efficiently . and showed no disposition to simmer to a state of constant mutiny. But, newest of all, he came for the first time in tact with an official called a purser the person of one Mr. Reginald Horrocks), at whose powers and posi- e was inclined to look very much ce Horrocks who welcomed and the pair of them Mr. board, was another up with diligence. as suspicious, brusque and in- to assert his position. But the ser was more a man of the world, bes , he was by profession ur- & cultivator of other people's s. He made it his boast that he in tes minutes get on terms of SSSSSSSSSSSSS 2 good word e thing’s long Ar yours commodore > do your you have t by Mr. Carn- em always ; and I've he wretch- shipmas- choose his be- ly thi ed 0 which is outside my and outside ne else on this God above keeps k as his own pri- he it out od pleasure; and we old re familiarly other qualifying adfectives more known se re Captain e knew the e . ass of pas- - r to her. On she was a favorite boat r and their con- e emselves voyvaged p very nasty ex- were ck of Armenians sed in water uld be *ans- # head shunni : not matter ey preferred her quiet rry, and noise, and of the crowded hounds. eer family Kettle was grey f this » Owen "THE TWO BRODIES SHowWeD ON THE WAVES civility with the sourest passenger who was ever put into an undesirable room: and he was resolved to get on a footing jality with the new skipper if his Mr. Horrocks had in the days of his novitiate, and he did to repeat the experience. u will kindly remember that I am captain of the ferry,” he said You're captain ] the way, sir,” said genfally. “My department is Horrocks of the passengers as your dep- and the recelving of stores from uperintendent purser ashore; and I wish to handle them all according to your orders.” " sald Kettle, “you'll have a pretty hand here. 1 don’t mind_ telling u I'm new to this hotel-keeping busi- I've been in cargo boats up to captain, a purser's vork is a profession to itself, and the Is are not likely to have come in your way. 1 suppose I'd better run things on much as before to start with, and when you see a detail you want changed you tell me and I'll see It changed right away. That's where I come in; I'm a very capable man at carrying oui orders. And there's an- other thing, captain; I know my place; I'm just yo Captain Kettle ssed the bell “Purser,” sald he, believe we shall get on well. I hope we shall; it's most comfortable that way.” A bareheaded man in a short jacket knocked and came in through the charthouse dgor. “Steward, bring a bottle-of whisky and name on it and keep it in the yonder, and bring some fresh water and two glasses—purser, you'll have a drink,with me? 'Well, here’s plenty of cargo,” said Kettle, when the whisky came. “Here's plenty of passengers and a popular ship,” said the purser. But if Mr. Horrocks was civil and submissive in words on the Armenia it was because he had mastered the art of only saying those things which are profitable and keeping his private thoughts for disclosure on mora fitting occasions. When he sat at tea that night with his wife across in thelr 1it- tle house in New Brighton he men- tioned that the new captain did not altogether meet with his dugust proval. “He's a queer savage the: got hold of and no mistake this tim said be; “a fellow that's lived “Well, of course on freighters all his life and never seen a serviette and doesn’'t know what to do with his entertainment money.” “Tell the firm,” suggested Mrs. Hor- ks. Not much. re At least not yet. He's new and 8o naturally they think he's a Jew: . I'm not going to make myself mpopular by complaining too soon. Give this new old mdn string enough and he’ll hang himself neatly without my help.” “Like the last?" “Oh, this one’s worse than him. In fact, I'm beginning to be sorry I ever did get our las* >ld man the push. He was all right su long as T didn’t make my perquisites too big. But as for this one I don’t suppose he'll understand T've u right to perquisi.es at ail" “But,” said Mrs. Horrocks, “you're purser. What does he suppose you live on? He must know that the pay don't go far.” ““Well, he didn't seem to know what a purser was, and when I tried to hint it to him he just snapped out that he was cap- tain of this blooming ship.” “And then?’ Mr. Horrocks shrugged his shoulders. “Oh, I agreed right away. May as well tickle a fool as teade him, my dear. He thinks because he's a splepdid seaman— and he may be that, I'll adimit—he's fit to skipper a Western ocean passenger boat. Ho's a lot to learn yvet, and the man that's going to educate him. Now the exasperating part of it was, that not only did this process of “educa- tion” promptly begin, but Captain Kettle knew it. Never befcre had he had any one beneath him on board ship who had dared to’ dispute his jmperial will, and done it successfully. There was no hold- ing this affable purser, n6 pinning him down to a specific offense. If he mapped out a plan of ection and Captain Kettle objected to it, he was all clvility, and would give it up without argument. “‘Cer- tainly, sir,” he would say. “You're cap- tain on this boat, as you say, and I'm purser, and I just know my place.” And then afterward would invariably come a back thrust which Captaln Kettle could never parry. There were three long tables in the sa- loon, headed by the captain, the purser and the doctor, and when the passengers came on board at Liverpool or New York it was Mr. Horrocks who arranged their meal places. He had a nice discrimina- tion, this purser, and from long habit could sug up & passenger's general con- versational qualities at a glance, He knew also Captain Kettlé's tastes and lim- itations, and when that redoubtable mari- per had been making things unpleasant he rewarded him with dinner compahions for the next run who kept him in a state of subdued frehzy. It was quite an easy thing to do, and managed craftlly it was & species of torture impossible to resent. In fact it may be owned at once that as a conversational head to a liner’'s ta- ble Captain Kettle did not shine. The situation was new and strange to him. Up til then he had fought his way about the seas In cargo tramps, with only here and there a stray passenger; and, at table, professional toples had made up the talk, or, what was more common, glum, scowiing silence had prevailed. 4 Here, on this steam hotel he suddenly found himself looked up to as a head of society. His own real nces of the sca he kept back; he felt them to be vastly impolite; he never dreamed that they might be Interesting. His power of extracting sweet music from the accordlon he kept rigidly in the background. Accordions seemed out of place somehow with these finicking pas- sengers. He feit that his one genteel taste was for poetry, but only once did he let it slip out. It was halfway across the At- lantic on a homeward trip, and conversa- tion had lagged. The purser's and the doctor's tables were in a rattle of cheer- ful talk: Kettle’s was in a State of bore- dom. In desperation he ‘brogight out his sacred topie, « At once every ear within range started to lsten: he saw that at once. But he mistook the motive. The men around him —they were mostly Americans—thought that the whole thing was an effort of hu- mor. It never occurred to them that this vinegary-faced little sailor actually him- self made the sentimental rhymes he quoted to them; and when it dawned.upon them that this was no joke, and the man was speaking in sober, solemn earnest, the funmness of it swept over them like a wave. The table yelped with inextin- guishable laughter. Of a sudden Captain Kettle realized that he was his passengers’ butt, and sat back in his chair as though he was get- ting ready for a spring. In his first torrent of rage he could with gusto have shot the lot of them, but to begin with he was unarmed, and, in the second place, passengers are not crew; and moreover, after the first explosion, the laughter began to die away. One by one, the diners looked at the grim, sav- age, little face glaring at them from the end of the table, and their mirth seemed to chill. The Jaughter ended, and an un- comfortable silence grew and remained to the finish of the meal. During the succeeuing meals, moreover, up till the end of the voyage, that silence was very little encroac] upon at the captain’s end of the middle table. Any one who ventured to speak had the benefit of Captain Kettle's full gase, and found it disccncerting, Even to passengers on a modern steam ferry the captain is a per- son of some majesty, and this one had a look about him that did not invite further Iiberttes. ‘That tatch of passengers dispersed to the four corners of the earth from Queenstown and Liverpool, and the Ar- menia saw them no more; but news of the fracas somehow or another reached the headquarters’ office, and a kindly hint was given to Captain Kettle that such scenes would be better gvoided for the future, ¥ “I quite know that passengers are awk- ward cattle to deal with,”" said the part- ner who put it to him, ‘‘but you see, eap- tain, we make our living by carrying them, d we can't afford to have our boats made unpopular. You should use the more tact, my dear skipper. Tact; that's what you want. Stand 'em champagne out of your entertainment allowance, and they'll stand it back, and run up bigger bills with the wine steward. It all means profit, captain, and those are the ways You must get it for us. We aren’t asking you to drum round for cargo now. Your game is to make the boat cheery and comfortable for passengers, so that they'll spend a lot of money on board, and like it and come again and spend some more. Tumble?” The captain of the Armenia heard, and intended to conform. But, admirer of his though I must conscientiously write my- self, I cannot even hope that in time he would have shaken down fitly into the berth; for. to tell the truth, I do not think a more upsuitable man to govern one of these modern steam hotels could be found on the seas of either hemisphere. How- ever, as it happened, the concession was not demanded of him. His luck, that cruel, evil fortune, got up and hit him again and his ship was cast away, and he saw himself once more that painful thing—a ship master without employ- ment. More cruel still, he found himgelf at the same. time in intimate touch with a great temptation. The fatal woyage was from New York home, and it was in the cold, raw spring- time, when passenger lists are thin. The day before sailing a letter addressed, “‘Captain Kaettle, S. S. Armenia,” made its appearance on the charthouse table. How It got there no one seemed to know, but with the crowd of stevedores and others working cargo it would have been very easy for a messenger from the wharf to slip it an board unobserved. The letter was typewritten and carried the addresg of an obscure saloon in the Bow- ery. It sald: “There i{s a matter of $50,000 (10,000 “pounds) walting for you to earn with a little pluck and exertion. = You can either take the game or leave it, but it you conclude to hear more, come here and ask the barman for a five- dollar cocktall and he will show you Tight inside. If you are frightened don't come. We got no use for fright- ened men; we can easily find a man with more sand in him somewhere else.” The little sailor considered over this preclous document for the full of an hour, “Some smuggling lay,” was his first conclusion, but the sum of money ap too big for this; then he was halft minded to put down the whole thing as a joke; then as a lure to rob him. The final paragraph and the ad- dress given, which was in the worst part of New York City, seemed to point shrewdly to this last. And I believe prospect of a scrimmage was really the thing that in the end sent him off. But any, way, that evening he went, { and affcr some dificulty found the ruf- flanly drinking shop to which he had been directed. He went inside and .ooked Inquiring- ly across tne bar. The shirt-sleeved barman shifted his cigar. ‘‘Well, mister, what ean I set up for you?" “You're a bit proud of your $5 cock- tafls here, aren’t you?" The man loweréd his voice. “Say, are you Captain Cuttle?” “Kettle, confound you!" “Same thing, I guess. Walk right through that door yonder and up the stair,” Captain Kettle patted a jacket pocket that bulged with the outline of a re- volver. “If any one thinks they are go- ing to play larks on me here, I pity fem. The barman shrugged his shoulders. “Don’t blame you for coming ‘heeled, boss. Guess a gun sometimes chips in bhandy round here. But I think the gents upstairs mean squ biz." “Well,” said Kettle, “I'm going to . w om door and stumped up the 0 \\\\;\\\\;\\\\\“\\\\\ \ - A THE SAlLo R CFTHE UNS “And how do I know that I shoula get paia?’ The answer was somewhat astounding. “You an pocket the money hers, right now,” sald the voice. 3 “And once I got pald. what hold would you have on me? How do you know I'd shove this Grimshaw over the side? That, 1 suppose, is what you want? The volece chuckled. ‘““We've agents everywhere, captaln. We'd have you re- moved pretty sharp If you tried to fool us.” “Oh, would you?" snapped Kettle. “T've bucked against some tolerably ugly toughs In my time and come out top side, and shouldn’t mine tackling your crowd for the sheer sport of the thing. But look here, Mr. Paddy Fenian, you've got hold of the wrong man when you came to By James, yes, you skulking, cowardl, swine! You face behind a wall Come out here and talk. I won’t lift my bands Pll use my feet to you and kick your backbone through vour hat You'd dare to ask me to murder & man, would your Captain Kettle's eloquence had sa un~ looked-for effect. The voice from the speaking tude langled. ) O ~——— - WENT ON RESH AND Sroke EEN ONES ANCESTORS He stepped into a room, rely fur- The sailor went on afresh and spoke of nished, and lit by one grin window. the unseen one’s ancestors on both sides There was no one to receive .!m, 850 he of the house, his personal habits and drummed the table to make his pres- ence known, Promptly a volce sald to him, “How- gv. captain? Wil ye mind shuttin' the oor? He slewed sharply round to make sure he was alone d even kicked his foot under the tgble to see that thers Was no jugglery about that, and then the volice spoke to him again, with Irish brogue and Yankee idiom quaint- 1y intermingled. - “Sure, captain, I have to ask yer par- dop for keeping a brick wall right here between us. But I've me health to con- sider an"I reckon our biz will be safest done this way.” The little sallor's grim face relaxed into a smile. His eye had caught the end of a funnel which lay flush with the wall. “Ho!" he said. “That’s your game, is it? A speaking tube. Then I sup- Pose you've got something to say you are ashamed of?” “Faith, I'm proud of it. A pafhriot is never ashamed his cause.” “Get to- busines: sald Kettle. “My time's short and this waiting-room of yours is not over savory.” “It's just a lttle removal we wish you to undertake for us, captain. You have got "a Mr. Grimshaw on your passenger list for this run to Liver- pool.” “Have I?” It's so. He's one of the big bosses of vour British Government.” “Well, sypposing I have?”’ “‘He's been out here as a sort of com- mission and he's found out more than is good for him. He sails by the Ar- meria to-morrow and if you can—well -——80 centrive that he doesn't land at the other side, it means you are set up_for life.” Captain Kettle's face stiffened and he was about to break out with somethinz sharp. But he restrained himself, and asked, instead: , “What's the figure?” *350,000—say 10,000 of your English sov- ereigns.” probable futurs. He had acquired a good- 1y flow of this kind of vituperation during his professional cAreer and had been com- pelled to keep it bottled up befors the pas- sengers on the liner. He felt a kind of gusto in letting his tongue run loose again and had the proud consciousness that each of his phrases would cut like the lash of a whip. But the unseen man apparently ‘heard~gf him unrufffed. “Blow off steam. skipper, sald he; “don’t mind me.” Kettle looked around the empty room defectedly. ‘“You thing!" he said. ‘I could make a man with more spirit than you out of putty.” “Of course you could, skipper,” said the volce with the brogue: “of course you could. I don’t really exist. I'm onmly a name, as your beastly Saxon papers say when they abuse me. But I can hit, as they know, and I can draw checks, as you will find out if you choose. You can have your pay vet if you see fit to ch. your mind, and ‘remove’ spy Grimshaw between here and Liverpool. We've plenty of money, and you may as well have it as any one else. It's got to be spemt some- how." “I'd give a lot to wring your neck,” soid Kettle. He tapped the wall to test its thickness. “You tire me,” sald the volce. “Why can't you drop that? You ecan't get at me; and if you go outside and set on : the police in New York City you'll do n g00d. The police of this city know which side their bread's margarined. I'm the man with the checkbeok, sonny, and you bet they're not the sample of fools that'd go and try to snuff me out.” “This s no place for me,” sald Kettle “It seems 1 can't lug you out of the drain where you live, and if I stay in touch of your breath any longer I shall be po!s: ed. Tve told you who I consider you: mothér to be. Don't forge And the little bearded sgilor strode off ‘down the stair again and into the street. He had ng inclination to go to the police, having @ pious horror of the law, and so he ot Continued on Page 5.