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 £2,400 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 £15 per annum apiece, and as there were thirty-six houses, this made an income--on paper--of well over £500 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 the office window, pitched the box of business cigars into the fire, and generally pointed his remarks in a way that went straight to Mr. Bird's heart, and then prepared peacefully to take his departure.
"I shall not prosecute you for this--" said Mr. Isaac.
"I wish you dare. It would suit me finely to get into a police-court and be able to talk. I'd willingly pay my 'forty shillings and' for the chance. They'd give me the option fast enough."
"I say I shall not prosecute you because I have no time to bother with law. But I shall send your name round amongst the shipowners, and with my word against you, you'll never get another command so long as the world stands."
"You knock-kneed little Jew," said Kettle truculently, "do you think I'm giving myself the luxury of letting out at a shipowner, after knuckling down to the breed through all of a weary life, unless I knew my ground? I've done with ships and the sea for always, and if you give me any more of your lip, I'll burn your office down and you in it."
"You seem pleased enough with yourself about something," said Mr. Isaac.