But the business of that morning was the cleaning up of the yacht, and the taking aboard of the owner and guests. They came, at ten o'clock, and Captain Bill and the steward received them at the gangway. The owner was the conventional wealthy man, dignified and severe, who spoke sternly to his sailing-master, politely to his guests, and smiled only upon his daughter, a person who invited and demanded smiles. The abashed steward smiled, as he took her bundle of shawls from her; Big Bill smiled, as he sent forward a thundering order for men to lift the baggage out of the boat; and the cabin-boy smiled, as he opened the companion door for her. She was about twenty-one, with dark hair and eyes, and of medium height and build, beautiful, as men value beauty, but with the additional charm of presence that we cannot name except as personality. The friends of such people smile with them, laugh with them, frown with them, and suffer with them, and each thinks it emotion of his own. She had smiled upon Bill, and he went forward, smiling himself, and happier than he had been for years—for all the years since he had hoped for his commission, and failed to pass the test. He spared a few moments to the kitten, fondling, stroking, and caressing it, then tucking it snugly beneath his blanket against the time when he would come again.
In bringing this kitten aboard, Bill was guilty of disobedience; the owner had told him explicitly that the big yacht was to be kept clear of cats. But as the owner had given no reason for this embargo, he had considered it merely the whim of the moment, expressed by an irritable old man, and forgot it quickly.
Bill conned the big steam yacht down the river, through the Narrows, and out to sea by the Ambrose Channel; then, just a little tired, and able to enjoy a smoke, he was about to call the mate to the bridge, when Miss Mayhew appeared. She climbed the steps, rigged out in a hooded mackintosh—for there was a Scotch mist in the air—and with her was one of the guests—a tall, well-built, intellectual-looking fellow named Pearson, a lawyer, as Bill knew by the steward's gossip, and a devoted attendant on Miss Mayhew.
"You are the captain, aren't you?" ventured the girl. "Do you know, Captain Flanders, that I've never met a real captain in my life, until now, though I've read of so many? Have you ever led a cavalry charge?"
"What?" gasped Bill. "Why, Miss Mayhew! No, I'm a seafaring man, not a soldier."
"There are several kinds of captain, Miss Mayhew," interposed the lawyer, smiling. "There is the captain of a battleship, we'll say, or of a cruiser, a destroyer, or the captain of a merchant ship, a North River sloop, a mud scow, a tug, or a canal boat; then we have captains in the army, who might lead cavalry charges and we have captains of militia—tin soldiers, some call them—and captains of industry, captains in the Salvation Army, captains of police, and captains of boy soldiers in the parochial and industrial schools."
"And where, and how, do you classify me?" said Bill, his eyes opened wide, and his voice tense and restrained.
"You?" said the lawyer. "Why, under the rules of the New York Yacht Club, you are not a 'captain,' but a 'mister.' You are Mister Flanders, not Captain Flanders."
"I am?" stuttered Bill, in a suppressed fury of rage. "Yes, you're right. Under the rules of the club I am mister, while the owner is captain, but in the minds of my crew I am called captain of this ship, and away from soundings, under the law, I am captain, with power, backed by the law, to put a recalcitrant guest in irons if he gets too fresh. Get off this bridge instantly, or I'll call my men; and if you resist, I'll have you in irons."
"You will?" asked the smiling Pearson. "Well, all right; put me in irons, and I will deprive you of your license."