"But what did you do?" asked Mrs. Cliff. "If it was a lark without liquor, I want to hear about it."
"It was a temperance lark, ma'am," said Burke, "and this is what it was.
"Now, though I have been to sea ever since I was a boy, I never had command of any kind of craft, and it struck me that I would like to finish up my life on the ocean wave by taking command of a vessel. It is generally understood that riches will give you anything you want, and I said to myself that my riches should give me that. I didn't want a sailin' vessel. I was tired of sailin' vessels. I wanted a steamer, and when I commanded a steamer for a little while I would stop short and be a landsman for the rest of my life.
"So I went up to Brest, where I thought I might find some sort of steamer which might suit me, and in that harbor I did find an English steamer, which had discharged her cargo and was expectin' to sail again pretty much in ballast and brandy, so far as I could make out. I went to this vessel and I made an offer to her captain to charter her for an excursion of one week—that was all I wanted.
"Well, I'm not going to bother you, Mrs. Cliff, with all that was said and done about this little business, which seemed simple enough, but which wasn't. There are people in this world who think that if you have money you can buy anything you want, but such people might as well get ready to change their opinions if they ever expect to come into money."
"That is true," said Mrs. Cliff; "every word of it is true, as I have found out for myself!"
"Well," continued Burke, "there had to be a lot of telegraphin' to the owners in London and a general fuss with the officers of the port about papers, and all that, but I got the business through all right; for if money won't get you everything, it's a great help in making things slip along easy. And so one fine afternoon I found myself on board that steamer as commander for one week.
"Of course, I didn't want to give orders to the crew, but I intended to give my orders to the captain, and tell him what he was to do and what he was not to do for one week. He didn't like that very much, for he was inclined to bulldogism, but I paid him extra wages, and he agreed to knuckle under to me.
"So I gave him orders to sail out of the harbor and straight to the Island of Ushant, some twenty-five miles to the west of northwest.
"'There's no use going there,' said the captain,—his name was Dork,—'there's nothing on that blasted bit of rock for you to see. There's no port I could run this steamer into.'