Sheriff laughed.  “You aren’t the handiest man in the world to get on with, and if I hadn’t been an easy-tempered chap I should have bidden you go to the deuce long enough ago.  Of course, I want something out of you.  A man who has just lost a fortune, and who is down on his luck like I am, can’t afford to go in for pure philanthropy without any possible return.  But, at the same time, I’m finding you a job at fifty pound a month with a fortnight’s wages paid in advance, and I think you might be decently grateful.  By your own telling, you never earned so much as four sovereigns a week before.”

“The wages were quite to my taste from the beginning, sir; don’t think me ungrateful there.  But what I didn’t like was going to sea without knowing beforehand what I was expected to do.  I didn’t like it at first, and I refused the job then; and if I take it now, being, as you say, cornered, you’re not to understand that it’s grown any the tastier to me.”

“We shouldn’t pay a skipper a big figure like that,” said Sheriff drily, “if we didn’t want something a bit more than, the ordinary out of him.  You may take it you are getting fifteen pounds a month as standard pay, and the extra thirty-five for condescending to sail with sealed orders.  But what I told you at first I repeat now:  I’ve got a partner standing in with me over this business, and as he insists on the whole thing being kept absolutely dark till we’re away at sea, I’ve no choice but to observe the conditions of partnership.”

Some thirty minutes later than this, Mr. Sheriff got out of his ’rickshaw on the Marina and went into an office and inquired for Mr. White.  One of the colored clerks (who, to do credit to his English education, affected to be utterly prostrated by the heat) replied with languor that Mr. White was upstairs; upon which Sheriff, mopping himself with a handkerchief, went up briskly.

White, a gorgeously handsome young Hebrew, read success from his face at once.  “I can see you’ve hooked your man,” said he.  “That’s good business; we couldn’t have got another as good anywhere.  Have a cocktail?”

“Don’t mind if I do.  It’s been tough work persuading him.  He’s such a suspicious, conscientious little beggar.  Shout for your boy to bring the cocktail, and when we’re alone, I’ll tell you about it.”

“I’ll fix up your drink myself, old man.  Where’s the swizzle-stick?  Oh, here, behind the Angostura bottle.  And there’s a fresh lime for you—­got a basket of them in this morning.  Now you yarn whilst I play barmaid.”

Mr. Sheriff tucked his feet on the arms of a long-chair and picked up a fan.  He sketched in the account of his embassage with humorous phrase.

The Hebrew had been liberal with his cocktail.  He said himself that he made them so beautifully that no one could resist a second; and so, with a sigh of gusto, Sheriff gulped down number two and put the glass on the floor.  “No,” he said; “no more.  They’re heavenly, I’ll grant, but no more.  We shall want very clear heads for what’s in front of us, and I’m not going to fuddle mine for a commencement.  I can tell you we have been very nearly wrecked already.  It was only by the skin of my teeth I managed to collar Master Kettle.  I only got him because I happened to know something about him.”