Rembrandts, Leonardos, Michael Angelos, in short, all our wealth of art
and intellect? What is a miserable cur of an American millionaire, a
dollar maniac, as compared with all those great men? Let him come and ask
us for alms."

XX

The captain invited Frederick to his cabin and asked him to write a
few words in his album. On the way, he showed him the chart-room and
the wheel-house, where a sailor was turning the great wheel at the
directions of the first mate, whose voice came from the bridge through
a speaking-tube. Frederick read the compass in front of the wheel and saw
that the _Roland_ lay west-southwest. The captain was in hopes of
striking better weather by taking a more southerly route. The helmsman
did not allow his attention to be diverted for the fraction of a second.
He kept his bronzed, weather-beaten face with its corn-coloured beard
turned unwaveringly toward the compass, and his sea-blue eyes fastened
upon the west-southwest line. And the face of the compass, in its round
copper case, notwithstanding the vessel's elephantine leaps and bounds,
never deviated from the horizontal.

When they reached his cabin, the handsome blond German, whose eyes came
of the same stock as the mariner's at the wheel, became more expansive.
He insisted on Frederick's taking a comfortable seat and offered him a
cigar. He spoke of his own life. Frederick learned that he was unmarried,
had two unmarried sisters and a brother with a wife and children. The
pictures of his sisters, his brother, his brother's wife, his brother's
children, and his parents were hung symmetrically on the wall over a red
plush sofa. They were sacred objects.

Frederick did not fail to ask his stereotyped question:

"Do you follow your calling because you have a decided preference for
it?"

"Tell me of a position on land where I could command the same salary, and
I'd exchange without an instant's hesitation. Seafaring begins to lose
its charms when a man gets on in years."

The captain's guttural voice was extremely agreeable. It suggested to
Frederick the sound of colliding billiard balls. His enunciation was
perfect, absolutely free of a dialectic tinge.

"My brother has a wife and children," he said. Though there was, of
course, not the slightest trace of sentimentality in his tone, it was
evident from the gleam in his eyes how he idolised his nieces and
nephews. He pointed out each one's picture and at the end said frankly,
"My