With a most melancholy demeanor, Walter Goodwin, ordinary seaman, went forward as eight bells struck the dinner-hour. His excellent appetite had vanished. The opportunity for a "husky young fellow" seemed to have been knocked into a cocked hat. Because he was such a very young man, his emotions were apt to veer from one extreme to the other. He was ready to believe the worst, nor did he dream of accosting Colonel Gunther and pleading his own special case. A fellow couldn't help standing in awe of one whom the whole Isthmus regarded as "the biggest man in the world." The enchanted land of Panama had suddenly become unfriendly and forbidding. He feared that he was about to become that dismal derelict, a "tropical tramp."
"This is the toughest kind of luck," he said to himself. "They are actually warning Americans away from the place."
Captain Bradshaw, strolling through the ship on a tour of inspection, noticed the gloomy young seaman and kindly inquired:
"Lost anything? You can't be sea-sick in weather like this."
"I have lost my job," mournfully answered Walter.
"Lost it before you found it, eh? What kind of a riddle is that?"
Walter briefly and bitterly explained, at which Captain Bradshaw was moved to suggest:
"If I could shove Colonel Gunther overboard, accidentally on purpose, and you hopped after him and saved him from a watery grave, what? He would simply have to offer you a good position."
"But I can't swim well enough. You will have to think of something else."
"Well, you can stay in the ship, and I will try to make an able seaman of you."