He never knew a ship to roll as our ship rolled.
"Perfec'ly satisfact'ry ocean, but ship--rolling like a stone-breaker.
Take me some place in the ship where this ship don't roll."
The steward led him away.
When he had dropped the local pilot the captain beckoned me to the
bridge.
"I saw you talking to Mr. Schnitzel," he said. "He's a little under the
weather. He has too light a head for liquors."
I agreed that he had a light head, and said I understood his name was
Jones.
"That's what I wanted to tell you," said the captain. "His name is
Schnitzel. He used to work for the Nitrate Trust in New York. Then he
came down here as an agent. He's a good boy not to tell things to.
Understand? Sometimes I carry him under one name, and the next voyage
under another. The purser and he fix it up between 'em. It pleases him,
and it don't hurt anybody else, so long as I tell them about it. I don't
know who he's working for now," he went on, "but I know he's not with
the Nitrate Company any more. He sold them out."
"How could he?" I asked. "He's only a boy."
"He had a berth as typewriter to Senator Burnsides, president of the
Nitrate Trust, sort of confidential stenographer," said the captain.
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