expected--it was afloat, on its way, but, meantime, the loading of
my ship dead stopped, I had enough to worry about. My consignees,
who had received me with such heartiness on my arrival, now, in the
character of my charterers, listened to my complaints with polite
helplessness. Their manager, the old-maidish, thin man, who so
prudishly didn't even like to speak about the impure Jacobus, gave
me the correct commercial view of the position.

"My dear Captain"--he was retracting his leathery cheeks into a
condescending, shark-like smile--"we were not morally obliged to
tell you of a possible shortage before you signed the charter-
party. It was for you to guard against the contingency of a delay-
-strictly speaking. But of course we shouldn't have taken any
advantage. This is no one's fault really. We ourselves have been
taken unawares," he concluded primly, with an obvious lie.

This lecture I confess had made me thirsty. Suppressed rage
generally produces that effect; and as I strolled on aimlessly I
bethought myself of the tall earthenware pitcher in the captains'
room of the Jacobus "store."

With no more than a nod to the men I found assembled there, I
poured down a deep, cool draught on my indignation, then another,
and then, becoming dejected, I sat plunged in cheerless
reflections. The others read, talked, smoked, bandied over my head
some unsubtle chaff. But my abstraction was respected. And it was
without a word to any one that I rose and went out, only to be
quite unexpectedly accosted in the bustle of the store by Jacobus
the outcast.