and put you ashore at the first port of call?"

"Certainly, sir. That's just what I am trying to avoid. As a gentleman,
I am prepared to do everything in my power to relieve you of what must
seem a most painful official duty."

Mr. Mott smiled. The Captain stiffened perceptibly.

"How did you come aboard this ship?" he demanded.

"As a coal passer, sir. Day before yesterday, when you were getting
in the last lot of coal. I had a single five dollar gold piece in my
pocket. It did the trick. With that seemingly insignificant remnant of
a comfortable little fortune, I induced one of the native coal
carriers,--a Portuguese nobleman, I shall always call him,--to part
with his trousers, shirt and hat. I slipped 'em on over my own clothes,
stuffed my boots and socks inside my shirt, picked up his basket of
coal, and walked aboard. It isn't necessary, I suppose, to state that my
career as a dock-hand ceased with that solitary basket of coal, or that
having once put foot aboard the Doraine, I was in a position to book
myself as a passenger."

"Well, I'm damned!" said Captain Trigger. "Some one shall pay for this
carelessness, Mr. Mott. I've never heard of anything so cool. What did
you say your name is, young man?"

"A. A. Percival, sir."

"Ah--ahem! I see. Will it offend you, A. A., if I make so bold as to
inquire why the devil you neglected to book your passage in the regular
way, as any gentleman from Baltimore might have been expected to do, and
where is your passport, your certificate of health, your purse and your
discharge from prison?"

Mr. Percival spread out his hands in a gesture of complete surrender.

"Would you be interested in my story, Captain Trigger? It is brief, but
edifying. When I arrived in town, the evening before you were to sail,
I had a wallet well-filled with gold, currency, and so forth. I had
travelled nearly two thousand miles,--from the foothills of the Andes,
to be more definite,--and I had my papers, my cancelled contract, and a
clear right-of-way, so to speak. My personal belongings were supposed to
have arrived in town on the train with me. A couple of cow-hide trunks,
in fact. Well, they didn't arrive. I don't know what became of them. I
had no time to investigate. This was the last boat I could get for
two or three weeks that would land me in the U. S. A. I put up at the
Alcazar Grand for the night. It was then too late to secure passage, but
I fully intended to do so the first thi