to the name of Adelbert P. Gibney. Mr. Gibney had spent part of
an adventurous life in the United States Navy, where he had
applied himself and acquired a fair smattering of navigation.
Prior to entering the Navy he had been a foremast hand in clipper
ships and had held a second mate's berth. Following his discharge
from the Navy he had sailed coastwise on steam schooners, and
after attending a navigation school for two months, had procured
a license as chief mate of steam, any ocean and any tonnage.

Unfortunately for Mr. Gibney, he had a failing. Most of us have.
The most genial fellow in the world, he was cursed with too much
brains and imagination and a thirst which required quenching
around pay-day. Also, he had that beastly habit of command which
is inseparable from a born leader; when he held a first mate's
berth, he was wont to try to "run the ship" and, on occasions,
ladle out suggestions to his skipper. Thus, in time, he had
acquired a reputation for being unreliable and a wind-bag, with
the result that skippers were chary of engaging him. Not to be
too prolix, at the time Captain Scraggs made the disheartening
discovery that he had to have a skipper for the _Maggie_, Mr.
Gibney found himself reduced to the alternative of longshore work
or a fo'castle berth in a windjammer bound for blue water.

With alacrity, therefore, Mr. Gibney had accepted Scraggs's offer
of seventy-five dollars a month--"and found"--to skipper the
_Maggie_ on her coastwise run. As a first mate of steam he had no
difficulty inducing the Inspectors to grant him a license to
skipper such an abandoned craft as the _Maggie_, and accordingly
he hung up his ticket in her pilot house and was registered as
her master, albeit, under a gentlemen's agreement, with Scraggs