And presently the State of Oregon began, as the men said, to smell land. It was off Finisterre that Noyes proved the man from Abo could bleed; for the skipper never forgot that he had been knocked out in one round by knocking down a 'Dutchman.' The thought rankled, and when Hans was at the wheel when the wind was light out of the north-east the skipper's temper, ragged at a contrary wind when he had made a record passage so far, led him a little astray. For, as he often said, "It's all right marking men when one's bound home and when they've time to get well bound to Yewrope, but I like to leave 'em without no visible sign to say you've larrupped 'em when I'm bound East."
In the United States there is very little respect for a man who can't take care of himself, but some Europeans have silly notions. It's not uncommon even to find a consul who doesn't understand that sailors are no good unless they are in a state of mutiny or near it. There is no end to the foolishness of some consuls, as Captain Noyes often complained with natural bitterness. So when, after he had cursed Hans twice for his steering, he jammed the brass end of his telescope right between the man's eyes and cut him badly, he was quite sorry for it. You see, he had almost got to believe that the man from Abo couldn't be hurt. But a brass telescope properly applied makes four neat little cuts, one on the forehead, one on the bridge of the nose, and one on each eyebrow, as a little consideration of the human race and the nature of a circle will show. The blood ran down into Hans's eyes, and Bragg had to walk to the break of the poop and bellow:
"Relieve the wheel!"
And two days afterwards the State of Oregon, owing to a favourable change of wind, lay at Bordeaux. As soon as she did, the entire crew got too much to drink, and not even Noyes and Bragg could handle them, though the skipper was, as he had averred at the beginning of the passage, captain and congress and president all rolled in one. The only people who could handle them were the French police, and they had their work cut out. The next day, as it is the habit of Frenchmen and Spaniards and the like to let the consuls fix up all difficulties with foreign crews if they can, the American Consul was called on to arbitrate in the matter. And for the nonce the American Consul was the English one, for Mr. Schuyler had gone to Paris on what he described as business, but what no Puritan would have called such. And this is where the man from Abo came home, as one may say.
Mr. Johnson, then British Consul at Bordeaux, was a fine man with a clear skin, a merry eye, a knowledge of the world, and a hard fist. As a young man he had been amateur champion of the middle-weights in England, and though he was now a heavy-weight, he was almost as quick as he had been at twenty-two. He had a sense of fair play which was almost disgusting to masters of merchantmen, and a sense of humour which sometimes got him into trouble with the Foreign Office. For it may have been noticed that among the English Civil Service the only humour, which is, one has to own, rather sardonic, is to be found in that part of it which deals with the Income Tax. The very moment the consul had the shamefaced crew before him, and saw the officers, he knew where the trouble lay, and he thought of the boxing gloves with which he often whiled away an idle hour when the vice-consul felt "good."
"Well, now, well, what's the trouble?" asked the consul.
And Noyes told him where he thought it lay. Noyes was as smooth as bad butter, and had a heartiness about him which would have made a child cry for its mother. All the time he was talking, and the men were muttering that he was a liar, the consul was taking the crowd in. He spotted many marks and bruises on them, all come by honestly among themselves or given them without malice by the gensd'armes; but when his eye lighted on the man from Abo it stayed there.
"A comfortable ship, yes, yes," said the consul, "of course, of course! And a tough crowd to be sure. Here you, come here!"
And as the others saw that he meant Hans, they shoved him forward.
"That's a nice face you've got," said Mr. Johnson. "God bless my soul you've been running against something. Now I should say—I should say—yes, by Jove, you've been running against a telescope?"