no authority. But I dare say I am boring you. The present
situation is the one we're interested in, not the lordly past of your
humble and, I trust, obedient servant."

His smile was most engaging, but back of it the two seamen read
strength, decision, integrity. The gay, bantering, whilom attitude of
this unusual young man was not assumed. It was not a pose. He was not
a dare-devil, nor was he a care-free, unstable youth who had matured
abruptly in the exercise of power. On the contrary, he was,--and Captain
Trigger knew it,--the personification of confidence, an optimist to whom
victory and defeat are equally unavoidable and therefore to be reckoned
as one in the vast scheme of human endeavour; a fighter who merely rests
on his arms but never lays them down; a spirit that absorbs the bitters
and the sweets of life with equal relish.

Captain Trigger was not slow in making up his mind. This clean-minded,
clean-bodied American with the confident though respectful smile, was a
chap after his own heart.

"I hardly know what to do with you, Percival," he said, a scowl of
genuine perplexity in his eyes. "You are not an ordinary transgressor.
You are a gentleman. You have exercised an authority perhaps somewhat
similar to my own,--possibly in some respects your position up there was
even more autocratic, if I may use the term. I am not unconscious of all
this, and yet I have no choice other than that designated by law. The
regulations are unalterable. It is a matter of morale, pure and simple.
We are compelled to treat all stowaways alike. Of course, I shall not
subject you to the ordinary--shall we say methods of--"

"Pardon me, Captain," broke in the young man, his smile no longer in
evidence; "I am asking no favours. I expect to be treated as an ordinary
stowaway. Set me to work at anything you like and I will make as good a
job of it as possible."

"I was about to suggest that you serve as a sort of assistant to Mr.
Codge, the purser. I've no doubt he could find something for you to do
and--"

"If that is your way of punishing me, Captain Trigger, of course there
is nothing for me to do but to submit."

"Eh? I am sure you will not find Mr. Codge a hard taskmaster. He is
quite a good-natured man."

"Extremely kind and considerate," hastily added Mr. Mott, reassuringly.

"But I don't want to loaf my passage home," protested Percival. "I want
to be sentenced to the hardest sort of labour, if you don't mind. I
don