THE JUDGMENT OF MEN[A]
I had rowed in for fresh beef. The weather was cold, the water rough and when Wilson asked permission to go up town to get tobacco, I let him go and made my own way to the ship-chandler's, where we men of the sea usually bought our supplies and sometimes spent an hour or two discussing primage freights and other things pertaining to shipping.
There were two big five-masters lying just outside of us in the channel and their masters were known to me. One of them had picked me up at sea from a derelict and the other was Bull Simpson, well known on the coast. Simpson was much given to gregariousness. Johnson was companionable, but quiet, and I knew they would be in Jackson's store that morning, for they would clear the next day.
The day was in midwinter. The gloomy sky whipped by the nor'wester showed signs of snow. How one hates snow at sea! The nasty white stuff making the decks like glass, hiding everything from view. The harbor was white with the scrape of the cold wind, and the salt water froze where it struckin spray. Yes, I would go to Jackson's store. The shipping looked too gloomy to contemplate any longer. I thought of the frozen fingers handling canvas stiff as tin.
The stove, a ship's bogie, was red hot in the back room. Simpson was there, long, lean and solemn. So was Johnson there, but he was smiling, smoking and so glad to be in harbor that it stuck out all over him. Captain Cone, master of a tramp steamer, sat near and warmed his fat toes, his pudgy hands red with frost.
"Go back, they're all there," grinned Jackson to me, as I passed the desk. "Thought you'd gone to sea—sech fine wedder—for gulls—what? Go back an' set in, Cap; I'll come back for your order presently."
"Hello, you look cool," said Johnson, smiling up at me from his chair.
"Glad to see you—set in," said Simpson, making room for a chair near the bogie. "Shake hands with Captain Cone of thePrince Albert—Cone has a good tea-kettle for this weather—don't you wish you ran a tramp? Please? No, I didn't hear that last——"
I bowed to the Captain. A captain of a tramp was something new to us. We seldom had any but sailormen in the group and British skippers were always looked upon as a rarity. Still they were always welcome. Cone stuck out his pudgy hand. I squeezed the fat fingers until he winced and withdrew them. I never cared for pudgy-handed seamen—just prejudice, a meanness, but it couldn't be helped.We can't help everything, we must be human, and Cone took it good-naturedly—was way above such things. He showed it by spitting voluminously at the bogie and remarking it was very cold to go to sea.
Simpson didn't like it at all. He showed it, grumbled something about Yankees and stiff-necked folks, then subsided while I lit up and gazed complacently at Johnson. We talked of various things until Cone rose, buttoned his coat and went into the office to fill his order. Simpson glared at me for a moment.
"What's the use of being so damned short with the Britisher? What's he done?" he asked.
"It's what he hasn't done I object to," I answered. "Stupid, heavy brute——"
Captain Cone came back and extended his hand. "Good-by, Simpson—good-by, gentlemen—hope you'll have better weather of it to-morrow."
I noticed that he held out his left hand; it was the left hand that was so pudgy, so fat and soft. His right hand was gloved and the fingers of the glove were stiff, straight.
"Good day," I said, rising, "and good luck to you." Johnson nodded also and the stranger withdrew, followed by Jackson who saw him to the door.
"Wake up," I said to Simpson. "Don't think I meant anything, but these Britisher tramp skippers are the limit. High ideals! lots of feeling! Human as a beef and twice as heavy—after dinner. Where did he blow in from?"
"He came in for coals to take him to Brunswick—he'll load for lumber there and go back home—hope he'll get a better reception than he got here—he's a member of the English Masters' Association; you might have been kind to him," said Simpson.
"Was he the man they fired from the Association last month? Seems to me I heard of a Cone—seems like he was accused of brutality or something, lacks humanity—looks like it, anyway," said Johnson.
"Yes, he was fired—yes—by God, he was," snapped Simpson, "and it was just such judgment that gets lots of good men into trouble. 'Lacked human sentiment'—lacked human sentiment—well, that's a charge for you! Hell! you fellows get narrower and narrower—I happen to know Cone, knew him years ago—he was fired for losing theChampion—'lacked human sentiment,' bah! Oh, now you remember him, heh?"
"Yes, we remember him—the man who lost a fine ship in collision in a clear night," said I, with something of a sneer. "But that wasn't the worst of it——"
"Yes, you read the damned papers—you got a fine idea of it all," snapped Simpson. The old seaman turned and spat viciously at the bogie as if the poor old stove, red-hot, had done him some grievous wrong. Then he turned scornfully to Johnson.
"You remember theChampion? You know something about her, you ain't so damned stuck about yourself. I happened to be aboard of her the day she sailed, talking to Redding,her chief mate—Redding, that was lost in theArctic—yes, Redding was as straight as a string—and he told me the details of that accident after he came from the hospital—too late. He was nearly a year in the insane ward from a blow that smashed his head, but he told me about Cone.
"Yes, it was Cone who left his wife—so they said—left her, deserted her and the children. It was Cone who acted in every disgraceful way the old women tell about, Cone who raised hell and paid the devil wherever he went, Cone who only got command of theChampionafter pulling shares and playing the game for all it was worth—no, don't tell me—don't, I say—I don't want to hear about what he did. I'll tell you how he lost the ship, and you say you'll believe anything poor Redding said—so would I. If there was truth in any man it was in Dan Redding—poor devil."
"Yes," I assented, "Redding was all right."
Simpson scorned to notice me. He talked at Johnson, or rather talked at me through Johnson, over him, and—Simpson could talk, talk like an Admiralty lawyer with two noggins of rum under his ribs. Jackson came in and took Cone's vacated chair. He rubbed his hands. Cone had been a good buyer, had needed plenty of stuff—and he got it at the highest rates. Jackson approved of Redding also, approved of him for the sake of memory—Redding had always paid a full bill—never asked rake-off,pourboire, "graft," or other money from him.
"You heard all that stuff about Cone, too," said Simpson, sneeringly at Jackson; "and I dare sayyou believe it like a good old woman you are, but I'll tell you just how he lost the ship—if you believe Redding.
"They cleared at daylight, bound for St. John's—had twenty passengers first class and about seventy second—no steerage those days. Redding said the weather was hell and something worse from the time they dropped the land, and you men know how it is on the coast in the winter time. The oldChampioncame across and poked her nose into the fog bank off Sable Island—bad place? Well, I reckon it is. Bad because you can't tell where the devil you are and can't keep any kind of reckoning in that current. That Sable Island bank is nearly as bad as Hatteras for us windjammers.
"Cone slowed his ship that last morning—according to Redding—slowed her down to a few knots, made the passengers keep off the decks in order to have peace and quiet aboard. One old lady didn't like it at all. She insisted she had a right to go where she pleased aboard—told the skipper so to his face and dared him to put her below. Some of the other women folks followed her example—did Cone do it? Well, he just called his quartermaster and told him to remove the objectionable old women, told him to carry them below if necessary—and that square-head did. Yes, sir, he just picked up the leader and carried her off in his arms while she screamed and clawed him, calling to the men to save her from the brutal assault.
"Oh, yes, he got a nice name for that. The passengers told how he acted, told how he brutallymade his men remove innocent and unoffending females—oh, what's the use? He was a brute and they made it out plain—it was all published in the papers.
"It was along about five o'clock and the sun must have been well along to the nor'west horizon, tho' of course he couldn't see it in the fog—that a horn blared out faintly right ahead. The man on lookout heard it—for it was now quiet on deck—and the siren roared out its reply. Then he got a faint blow right off his starboard bow, a blow as if from a small fishing schooner. He kept along blowing regular blasts, kept along very slow.
"Right out of the setting sun a bit of wind seemed to make. It lifted the bank enough to show him a four-masted ship standing right into him not two hundred feet from his bow. She was heeling with the growing breeze and going about six knots or better with just a white bone across her forefoot. Cone rang off his engines.
"It is in these moments, you know, that things happen. Had Cone rang ahead full speed like Chambers did in the oldLawrence, rang and shoved into her full swing, he would have either gone clear or cut out enough to give her his stern on the turn and probably not sink either ship. He kept to the rules by British force of habit of abiding by them—and, well, thePotomack, under three skysails and shoving along with four thousand tons of cargo in her, hit him fair upon the side while he was swinging to port. The ship's jibboom reached over and drove a hole through the deckhouse first, poked rightthrough and ripped off his blowoff pipe, letting the steam come roaring out of her, and then the heavy forefoot sunk like a wedge fair in her, right in the wake of her engines. It was the worst possible place to get it—you know that—right in the wake of the engines and close enough to the engine-room bulkhead to smash it so it was useless. Then it cut, shore down under the water line, and there he was with a hole in him big enough to drive in a trolley car, a hole and nothing but the forward bulkheads to hold him up—no, he was badly hit, hit right in the vitals, and the roar of the steam told him plainly that the ship was going to be put to it to float.
"Then came the usual panic.
"Cone tried to stop it, tried to stem the tide of passengers. His officers were good, but Redding was hit on the head by a block from the maingaff vang and while Cone was trusting to him to take charge aft, he set to work forward to get the boats out in ship-shape and seamanlike order. His second was a new man—Billings—a blue-nose he knew nothing about, but a good enough fellow to take charge. He and the third officer stood the crowd back for a time and got the port boats over.
"You see, it was smooth and there wouldn't have been much trouble, but the passengers had a grouch against Cone, hated him. The women thought him a brute and the men had heard so much from them about his private life, his affairs, his general rascality, they wouldn't stand it any longer. They rushed it and two were shot, one fell overboard andanother was badly hurt. These were the only casualties—strange, wasn't it? Only passengers hurt were those who were trying to save themselves from the brutal and overbearing Cone.
"TheChampionsettled quickly by the head, her nose getting well down. This had the evil tendency of lifting her stern so high that the boats couldn't be handled easily. It stopped the flow of the sea to a certain extent, but it was too late to do anything to help that now. The fireroom force came up, they were literally drowned out, forced to quit, and the engineers came forward and told of the useless steam—not enough to run the pumps. Then Cone knew it was get away while he could.
"Cone stood on the port side of the flying bridge, stood there and roared out his orders, wondering why Redding didn't respond to the work cut out aft. He saw no boats going over where Redding should be tending to them, and when the crowd finally surged forward he had to let them come, had to let them get into the boats there. Oh, yes, he was charged with not holding them back, not being able to command his ship, but man, he had to let them come forward, it was only the fighting ones who insisted in getting first places and taking charge that got hurt.
"ThePotomacklay to and sent in her boats, sent in four big whaleboats and one dinghy. The water wasn't rough—any good boat would live a long time—and Cone let them take off his passengers as fast as they could. He was well scored for it afterward; they told how he couldn't do it himself, and if ithadn't been for thePotomackhe would have lost all his passengers.
"When theChampionsettled Cone was still standing there on the bridge, standing there and he knew what it meant to him.
"'You'd better go along, sir,' said Billings, 'we're going in the next boat.'
"But Cone just looked at him for a minute, just stood there watching things and saw the last passenger get away.
"'You hound,' the fellow yelled, 'you cowardly rascal—you insulter of women!'
"You see, passengers get excited in such cases, get to lose their heads. Cone never even looked at him, never took his eyes from the settling ship.
"The engineer force had gone, the only men left aboard were the quartermasters and mates. Cone spoke to Billings.
"'Get Redding and the rest—get in the boat, I'll come along in a moment.'
"TheChampionwas settling fast now. The roar of the steam and air from between decks was deafening. Billings didn't quite get the words, but he knew he was told to go—and he went. The third officer found Redding lying with a broken head and dragged him to the side, lowered him down and started after him. Just as he did this, there was a ripping noise from below. It was like a tearing sort of explosion, a rending. Cone had disappeared from the bridge and they waited no longer but shoved clear. At that instant theChampionsurged ahead, lifted her stern and dropped—she was gone.
"The suction whirled about, sucked the boat first one way and then another, bringing her right over the foundering ship. Billings saw a form jammed under the topmast backstay, saw a hand clutching something white and he reached for it as the topmast went under.
"It was Cone. It was the skipper.
"They hauled him into the boat and he still clutched that thing in his hand. He had been drawn under, been badly strangled and he was unconscious, but his hand hold was firm and no one took notice of what he held. It was the photograph of a woman.
"Billings didn't know anything about him; didn't know but what the tales told were true—so he took the thing away from him and said nothing about it; but Redding knew, Redding knew after he saw it—months afterward when it was shown him—too late to stop the nasty stories—oh, yes, it was the picture of his wife.
"Of course, Cone was living alone, had many affairs—so they said—and it would not do to drag a woman into his ugly life. He had gone into his room to get it—the picture—gone in to get it with that ship sinking under him, the unsentimental and brutal Cone—oh, well, what's the use?
"Yes, his hand was jammed between the backstay and the mast and Billings just got him clear in time—funny, is it? Well, I don't know, some men wouldn't have been so particular over a photograph, would have used both their hands to fight clear with—what? But then, that's what you call sentiment.No, you wouldn't expect it from Cone, wouldn't expect to find it in a seaman with ruddy cheeks and quiet manner, soft and a bit fat——"
"No," said Jackson, "you wouldn't expect a thing like that from Captain Cone—that's right."
"No, you expect sentiment from the thin, poetical, big-eyed, tender men, the men who slush and slobber it over at all occasions. You find women looking for it in the tender talkers, the soft-spoken, the amorous—oh, hell! did you ever see a man who looked the part—what?"
"I've sometimes had my doubts concerning heroes," said Johnson, "but they are—the real ones—generally most common-looking, most quiet and unassuming; but that Cone—well, he is a hard dose to swallow, and that's a fact."
"Well, treat him decently when he comes back," said Simpson.
Some years later I met Cone at the dinner given by the Manager of the Southern Fruit Company to the Captains of the West India fleet who ran the steamers chartered under contract to fill the winter schedule. There were as usual many British vessels in the trade, some Norwegian and a few American, including myself.
Cone had passed entirely out of my ken and this time I took his hand with the feeling that perhaps I had done the man an injustice by the human judgment passed upon him. He was a very old man now and his hand was still in a glove to hide the deformity which the accident had caused. He lookedvery much the kindly old-time shipmaster, bright of eye and vigorous to the last. He sat near me and remained silent during the opening of the somewhat formal repast. The Manager had been discussing some subject, for he seemed to wish to follow it at once.
"A thing's either right or wrong," said the Manager didactically, as he looked over the gathering. He paused for the effect of his words to be felt. He loved platitudes, although the leading man in his business and a millionaire. "A thing is either right or wrong," he repeated, "and a man is either right or wrong. There's a difference between them as plain as between black and white."
Captain Cone squirmed in his chair. He had listened to this sort of thing before from the Manager. The Company, the greatest shipping firm in the whole world, had paid him his salary, given him his liner and here was the Manager setting forth again against the manner of trusted employees who should know these self-evident truths. He interrupted.
"In fifty-five years spent knocking about the world upon every sea, I've come to a different conclusion," said he quietly.
It was so different from the usual applause, the applause which had already started and which would follow the Manager's splendid appreciation of the obvious. Several diners—there were twelve at the table—looked up quickly and wondered at the Captain.
"What—what do you mean?" asked the Manager softly, amazed at the interruption. He had beencoming to a point where he expected to hurl a smashing argument against the methods of some men who handled millions, and here he had been held up by a Captain, an employee of his Company. There was a silence, awkward, impressive—and the old seaman felt it, causing him to blush through his mahogany tan. He had committed himself, and he was essentially a modest man.
"I don't know exactly how to explain," said the Captain slowly. "These questions of human analysis are so very subtle, so elusive—I am only a sailorman after all, and perhaps I see things differently from the view taken by landsmen. There is much in the point of view. But it seems that I am still reasonable, still logical—and I am able to perform my duties even though I'm seventy."
He paused, passed his brown hand across his grizzled forehead, where the hair still hung thickly. Then he let it drop slowly down over his beard and his eyes seemed to have an introspective look. He spoke very slowly and with considerable hesitation as one not used to the ready flow of language, words every one of which had a meaning.
"There was a small matter," he continued, "which called my attention to the human judgment. I don't know how to tell it, but—well, you remember Jones, Captain Jones, who had an interest in the oil ships? Yes; well, I was thinking of him.
"Jones was one of the first oil carriers. That was before the Standard took charge. I had sailed with him as mate long before the war. He got a great tank ship—lost her. Then came the squeezeof the Consolidated, then the death of competition—and, well, Jones lost one thing after another. Froze out. They made him watchman at the office, made him night watchman, a man who had once run a ten-thousand-ton oiler, a man who had made them millions by his care and industry. Then he sank to the gutter and on forty dollars a month he tried to wrest a living for seven children—four of them girls. You know the old story, the sordid details. Jones had to take on liquor once in a while. He would have gone mad without a drunk at least once a month. He figured that it was best to get drunk than go mad, best for his family. It's all well enough to talk, for the chicken-souled loafers who preach to their flocks and then get their living through the generosity of silly women, to call poor Jones a drunken reprobate, a useless loafer, because he drank. But the red-hearted men, the men who knew him, knew what he was suffering, knew what weight was pulling him down. In two years he never bought a suit of clothes. He never spent anything upon himself—except at certain times he felt that he must undergo relaxation, must get away from himself—then he would get drunk, very drunk.
"His wife—oh, yes, he had his wife. She knew him, knew what he had gone through—she saw he got enough money for rum, helped him, stinted herself, slaved, worked—well, she did everything a poor, high-spirited woman could do."
Cone paused, took a drink, a mere sip, from his glass of water, then pushed it from him. The looksof the guests annoyed him. A prohibitionist from Maine glared at him and made him uncomfortable. There was a half-suppressed sneer upon the lips of the Manager, but he was a gentleman—and a host.
"Yes—I was speaking of his wife," he went on. "She helped him, held him up with a mighty soul, a tremendous strength for a woman. All through the dark and gloomy life he led, sleeping in the daytime and wandering about the desolate offices at night, she was always ready, always willing to lend a hand, steadying, guiding, always sound in judgment and above all ready at all times to make any sacrifice for either him or the children—yes, she was a great woman—may the God of the sea hold her gently where she lies in its bosom—dead? Oh, yes, she died long ago. The worst of the affair came about when Jones fell sick. He finally broke down under the awful strain, couldn't stand it—no, the liquor didn't hurt him, he was used to that. It was the despair, the dead weight of crushed hopes, the knowledge of an old man unable to make good against the tide, the tide which was sweeping his children down to hell. The oldest girl was twenty and forced to work at a place where—well, never mind, it was the same old sordid story of a young woman staying, sticking out at a place where it was impossible for her to come out as she went in. Ruin, and hell for her afterward—convention, we call it—but what's the use? She was the old man's favorite, and it hit him very hard, very hard indeed.
"Yes, I remember it very well. Poor old Jones, captain of a ten-thousand-ton ship, owner of a quarterinterest in one of the biggest commercial enterprises in the world—six children and a wife starving on forty dollars a month and the seventh child—yes, it was pretty bad, especially bad for Jones, for he had done nothing to deserve his fate, nothing but fight a combination which knew no mercy. The relentless, implacable cruelty of corporations is well enough known to you gentlemen. Their laws are like the laws of Nature—transgress them and you must die. The laws of life are supposed to be just, therefore it is probable that those of some corporations are so likewise—I don't know. But they had smashed Jones. Crushed him down—yes, there he was at forty a month, trying to forget, trying to do something to keep his family alive, and then under the heaviest strain he broke one day—broke and went down."
Many of the guests at the Manager's table had now resumed their poise. Some at the farther end resumed conversation, overlooking the story-teller and wondering a little at his bad form to monopolize the talk of the complaisant dinner humor. But some of the men nearest the Manager still listened and the old Captain watched them with his dark bright eyes, eyes which seemed to sparkle like diamonds in the light. They were the eyes which had pointed the way to many millions of dollars' worth of cargo, many thousand passengers, and they watched over them through many a wild and stormy night upon the bridge of his ship in mid-ocean where the mind has much time to ponder over the methods, the ethics of the commercial human.
"I found him at the hospital," went on Cone. "He was shaky, but he fought his weakness back and went home at the end of two weeks to find his wife down with pneumonia and the house full of famished children."
Cone stopped speaking for a moment and gazed across the table at the polished buffet, seeming to see something in the mirror back of it. The Manager looked up, saw his gaze and spoke:
"I know there's lots of hardships, Captain," said he, "and I don't lay it all to the drink habit. Let your glass be filled—what?"
"Pardon me," said the old seaman. "I am old and forgetting my story—I was just thinking a bit. This is not a temperance lecture at all—no, no, that is not what I was thinking of." And he gazed at the prohibitionist across the board who was fingering his napkin.
"No, the thing that I was coming to is this. Jones found things in a desperate condition at his home. He must have money. It was an absolute necessity to have medical attendance at once for his wife, and he dreaded the free ward of the hospitals—he had gone into one once himself and knew what it meant. He must have money for his children."
"A man might steal under those conditions without being very bad," interrupted a man sitting next to him.
"That isn't what he did," said the old Captain. "He met a friend on the street while on his way to a pawnshop—and the friend heard his tale. His friend was a bank messenger, at least he was carryingthe proceeds of a ship's cargo in a bag. You see, in those days, captains were allowed to collect freights at certain points, being in the companies, and these moneys were carried aboard the ship until she reached her home port. Sometimes there were many thousand dollars. This friend had been with Jones in the old days and he knew his history. The money he carried was freights from an oil ship just arrived. There was fifteen thousand dollars of it in gold, and it was the property of the very corporation which had squeezed Jones and ruined him. Well, the friend did the obvious, did the human thing. He opened the bag and gave Jones just five hundred dollars in gold and then went along to try and fix the matter up with the firm—it required lying—that is bad; it required many other things which we will not discuss here, but they are eminently bad, bad as they can be—and by dint of lying, and pilfering, and—well, the friend made good the loss without ever getting found out—yes, a horrible example, I admit. He made good the five hundred and no one ever knew he was a thief. No one knows to this day—except—anyway, Jones saved his wife, and at the end of the money the friend helped him to buy into a schooner and he got command. They paid twenty-five per cent. in those days and he pulled out making enough to save the rest from abject poverty."
"But you don't mean you approve of that fellow, that thief who appropriated other people's money, his employers' money, do you?" asked the Manager in amazement. "The thing for him to have done was to have goneto the firm and stated the case, told of the poverty of Jones, told how he should be helped. No human being would have refused him."
"On the contrary, the friend did just those things—afterward—and as I said before, corporations know no laws but their own. They are relentless as the laws of Nature, as implacable as the laws of health. Go where there is cholera, get the germ into your system, and you will understand what I mean. No human feeling, no sympathy—nothing will save you but your own powers of resistance. You will necessarily die unless you can stand it. Most people die. And it may be right to have things this way—I don't know, I don't set up as a judge; I am a sailor. But I am human—and I don't hate my neighbor, I don't look upon my friend as my enemy. Perhaps I am wrong. Still the thief in this case suffered much. He was for years afraid of being found out. That shows the whole horrible futility of it all. He suffered more than Jones, for Jones knew from where the money came, knew it was money which by his judgment should have gone to him anyway. Jones refused to pay it back and wanted to publish the fact that he had gotten even with the corporation to the extent of five hundred dollars.
"Of course, he didn't do it. The friend persuaded him not to, and when he went into the coaster he forgot to talk about it even when under the effects of his drinks.
"You see, it was about that time the insurance troubles came about. Marine insurance had a tumbleowing to the loss of several heavy ships and other matters not worth discussing now. You were badly hit yourself, I believe,"—and the old Captain nodded to the Manager, who smiled acquiescence—"you told me at the time—if I remember rightly—that one more vessel gone and you would go to the wall.
"The friend owned shares in that schooner, owned more than half of her, and he it was that let her go out, made her go to sea after her policies ran out. He would not stop her carrying, for it meant laying her up and Jones would have to go ashore again until things straightened out. It was the hurricane season and she had to go light to Cuba.
"I remember something of the affair, for I happened to be on the dock when she sailed. Jones was standing aft giving orders, and his wife, with her three daughters, were below in the cabin. It was a pretty picture of commercial life, a picture of a man doing his work with his family or part of it around him, and I almost envied him his place. What does an old liner skipper ever have of domestic life? Never gets home, never sees his wife but once or twice a year, and the company never lets her go aboard the ship at all if they can help it. Well, she sailed out that August day, and the next thing we heard of him was that his schooner was driven ashore during a gale. She rammed up on one of the Bahamas, Castle Rock, I believe, and then broke up. Some of the crew and his daughters were saved—he and his wife went down—lost before they could get them ashore.
"And so there it is—did the men do all that wasright or did they do all that was wrong? That's the question. Where is the line of demarkation, where does the wrong leave off and right begin, or how is the mixture to be sifted down? We go by rules, we must play according to rules or the game becomes chaos. But do the rules always hold, do they always cover every emergency? I don't know, but I believe there is bad, or what is called bad, in all men, also there is good—it depends upon the man—not the rule."
There was a long pause. The Manager gazed curiously at his guest.
"You say the schooner went ashore on Castle Rock?"
"I said—well, it was somewhere about there, I don't know exactly," replied the old seaman, annoyed.
"There never was a wreck on Castle Rock that I ever heard of," said the Manager, eying the old Captain curiously, "but there was theHattie Davisthat was lost on the Great Inagua Bank—she wasn't insured, I believe."
"Yes, she was lost on the Great Inagua," assented the Captain, leaning back, as though the story were closed.
"You had a large interest in her, I believe," said the Manager slowly, "and I recollect, now, you lost all in her——"
"The light was not so good as it is now," quickly put in the old seaman. "It used to show only in clear weather—and it's almost always clear through the passage—I remember how the passengers used to be glad when we entered the passage coming up from Cuba in the old Panama ships—roughin the tumble off Maysi when the wind holds nor'east for a spell."
The Manager was gazing at the old skipper strangely. Then he suddenly turned and started to discuss other matters with his guests. The dinner went along without incident and afterward we arose to go to the smoking-room for our cigars.
"Come along with me, Cone," said the Manager, "I have a new orchid I picked up I want to show you; you always liked flowers, you know." Afterward I passed them and overheard the Manager saying in a low tone—"Well, you always had a hell of a reputation, Cone, anyway, but under the circumstances—well, there might be some sort of justification. You are too full of that damned sentiment for any business whatever. Still, I'll admit that it isn't so much what a man does that matters—that is, it doesn't matter so much ashowit is done—andwhodoes it."
And so this was Cone? This was the master who had earned a reputation for some very queer things as seamen see them. I remember the old days, the words of poor old Simpson who had long gone to the port of missing ships. Sentimental Captain Cone, stout, grizzled, bronzed, the man who lost his hand holding to the picture of a wife who had been false to him and who had accused him of many things too hard to print. It was strange.
I suddenly felt I would like to see Simpson, to acknowledge he was not so far wrong after all.
"The judgment of man is not good," I said in answer to some question relative to nothing concerning Cone, and with this platitude upon my lips I went home.