"I saw you talking to Mr. Schnitzel," he said. "He's a little under the
weather. He has too light a head for liquors."

I agreed that he had a light head, and said I understood his name was
Jones.

"That's what I wanted to tell you," said the captain. "His name is
Schnitzel. He used to work for the Nitrate Trust in New York. Then he
came down here as an agent. He's a good boy not to tell things to.
Understand? Sometimes I carry him under one name, and the next voyage
under another. The purser and he fix it up between 'em. It pleases him,
and it don't hurt anybody else, so long as I tell them about it. I don't
know who he's working for now," he went on, "but I know he's not with
the Nitrate Company any more. He sold them out."

"How could he?" I asked. "He's only a boy."

"He had a berth as typewriter to Senator Burnsides, president of the
Nitrate Trust, sort of confidential stenographer," said the captain.
"Whenever the senator dictated an important letter, they say, Schnitzel
used to make a carbon copy, and when he had enough of them he sold them
to the Walker-Keefe crowd. Then, when Walker-Keefe lost their suit in
the Valencia Supreme Court I guess Schnitzel went over to President
Alvarez. And again, some folks say he's back with the Nitrate Company."

"After he sold them out?"

"Yes, but you see he's worth more to them now. He knows all the
Walker-Keefe secrets and Alvarez's secrets, too."