The skipper showed him the letter that he had just received.
"Sloggett brought it on board, and gave it me just now as he came crawlin' to my cabin and let on a lot of slush about raisin' my pay agin' that they had just cut down, because they have tumbled to the fact that I've a down on them and the likes of them, and mean to get even by takin' them to Capetown. And she says in the letter that she isn't long for this weary lonely world (those are her words, and they make me feel as if I'd been ungrateful and ought to have overlooked the fact that she wasn't pretty), and that when she has deceased the letter is to go to me at once, and from that I draw the conclusion that she has deceased and is no more, don't you see?"
"I see," said the mate. "But does she say anything else? She hasn't left you a ship by any chance?"
"Not to say a ship," said Jordan, shaking his head, "but what's as good. It appears that she naturally let on that she owned ships, bein' a woman and a little inclined to brag, not havin' good looks to fall back on, and it turns out that she was in the tug and lighter line in Hartlepool, and, as I gather, doin' well enough, and makin' money with three good tugs and a number of lighters and barges not named, as well as a coal-yard with a well-established connection, and she has left the whole shoot to me."
"I congratulate you," said Thripp. "Now you are really independent and can go for Gruddle & Co. just as you like."
The skipper nodded.
"So I can, Thripp, so I can; but it is a great pleasure to me to think that I told 'em the truth and called 'em hogs before I had had this letter. Thripp, I feel more like a man than I have done since the very painful day that I had my certificate suspended. Now I'll go and tell Cade. He'll be glad to know it."
He turned to leave the bridge, when Thripp sighed.
"I suppose if you do take 'em on to Table Bay we shall all get the dirty kick-out there, sir?" said Thripp in rather a melancholy tone of voice.
The skipper laughed jovially.