I
Captain Michael O’Shea and Johnny Kent sat by a window of the Jolly
Mermaid tavern at Blackwall on the Thames below London. These two
leisurely drank mugs of bitter-beer and gazed with professional
interest at the crowded shipping of that great seaport thoroughfare
which sailor-folk call London River.
The Jolly Mermaid was one of a jostling row of ancient buildings with
bow-windows and balconies painted in bright hues which overhung the
tide at Blackwall, to remind one of the maritime London of towering
frigates and high-pooped galleons and stout seamen of Devon. The
near-by shore was filled with ship-yards and weedy wharves, and a
little way down river was the entrance of the vast inland basin called
the East India Docks, where soared a wonderful confusion of spars and
rigging, and the red funnels of the Union Castle liners lay side by
side.
On the turbid river moved in procession a singular variety of
craft: drifting Thames barges with dyed sails, square-riggers in
tow, Norwegian tramps half hidden beneath uncouth deck-loads of
lumber, rusty Spanish fruiters, coastwise schooners, spray-stained
steam-trawlers from the Dogger Bank, stubby Dutch eel-schuits, stately
mail-boats homeward bound from the tropics, sooty colliers from Cardiff.
They slid past with an incessant din of whistles which, warning,
expostulating, shouted the rules of the road in the language of the sea.
These familiar sights and sounds pleased Captain O’Shea, and he was
contented with his seat by the window of the Jolly Mermaid and the
excellent brew dispensed by the apple-cheeked young woman behind the
bar. Amphibious loafers drifted in and out or cast anchor on the wharf
alongside, riggers, watermen, dock-laborers, sailors, who seemed to
have a world of time on their hands. Their gait was slouching, their
attire careless, and their conversation peppered with sanguinary
references to their eyes.
“’Tis a restful place, Johnny, and as diverting as a theatre,” observed
O’Shea.
The chief engineer returned rather fretfully:
“I’m willing to be idle in this bit of slack-water for a while, and
sort of pull myself together, Cap’n Mike. But this don’t earn wages,
and I ain’t makin’ much headway toward buyin’ that farm down in the
State o’ Maine.”
Whimsical amusement lighted O’Shea’s bold, smooth-shaven features as he
replied:
“I am not a man to seek a humdrum life afloat or ashore, you impatient
old pirate. There was a lot of fuss kicked up at home about that Cuban
voyage of ours, as ye well know. And there was a strong chance that we
would be laid by the heels in one of Uncle Sam’s jails for breaking the
laws between nations. We are better off where we are.”
“That Spanish gun-boat got in our way and her intentions was plain
blood-thirsty,” grumbled Johnny Kent. “What if we did ram her and then
blow her up? She interfered with men who were tryin’ to make an honest
livin’ on the high-seas.”
“Argue as far as ye like, Johnny. It won’t alter the fact that it was
healthier for you and me to make ourselves hard to find.”
“But it’s discouragin’ to look for another ship here in England, Cap’n
Mike. We’re fish out of water.”
“’Tis not easy to find our kind of a ship anywhere,” O’Shea reminded
him. “There are no revolutions poppin’ the lid off in Central or South
America, and we will sit tight and trust in me lucky star. I have a
gold piece or two left in the toe of the sock where I stowed it against
times like this. And we have not sunk so low that we must sign on for a
lawful voyage.”
Johnny Kent crooked a finger at the bar-maid and sought consolation
in another mug of bitter, while Captain O’Shea turned to a morning
newspaper and ran his eye down the ship-news column to note the
arrivals and departures. Then he cast a cursory glance at the foreign
despatches, which might, perchance, disclose some disturbance of the
world’s peace and an opportunity for venturesome men used to alarms and
stratagems.
Johnny Kent was moved to begin an aimless yarn about a certain wicked
skipper of Yankee clipper fame who fetched his second mate all the
way home from Cape Town doubled up in a hen-coop as a punishment for
impertinence. O’Shea listened politely, but with a manner slightly
absent-minded, having heard the tale of the unfortunate second mate and
the hen-coop in at least five different ports.
The yarn was cut short, and the two men screwed around in their chairs
to stare at a visitor whose presence in the humble longshore tavern of
the Jolly Mermaid was most extraordinary.
He was an elderly and very dignified gentleman, of a spare figure and
the stiffly erect carriage of an army officer. His features, thin and
rather refined than forceful, were given an air of distinction by a
white mustache and imperial. From the silk hat and frock-coat, with the
ribbon of an order in the lapel, to the tan gaiters and patent-leather
shoes, he was dressed with fastidious nicety. In the dingy tap-room of
the Jolly Mermaid he was startlingly incongruous.
The stranger had the grand manner and it fitted him like a glove. He
was not offensively self-important, but one conjectured him to be a
personage who expected the world to show him deference. The bar-maid,
who was no dunce at reading human nature, bobbed a courtesy and
withheld the flippant persiflage which was wont to delight the nautical
patrons of the place.
A moment later there entered the tavern a brisk young man with a sandy
complexion and a roving eye, who was smartly but showily attired, a
keen, up-to-snuff young man who knew his way about. With a respectful
bow he addressed the impressive elderly gentleman.
“I told him to meet us here, if Your Majesty pleases.”
The apple-cheeked bar-maid was threatened with a fainting spell at the
intimation that royalty stood within the tavern walls, but rallied
bravely to suggest in a fluttered voice:
“There’s a tidy little back room, your royal ’ighness, where you can
set down private-like without common folks starin’ and gawkin’ at your
Worship.”
“Thanks. I am rather tired after tramping about the docks,” amiably
replied the personage in the pleasantly modulated accents of the
cultivated Englishman. To the brisk young man he said:
“Let us sit down, my dear baron, and look over some of the memoranda
while we are waiting.”
“Certainly, Your Majesty,” quoth the young man, and with this they
passed into the little back room and closed the door. A dock-laborer
ripped out an oath of amazement and clattered from the bar to tell his
friends that “one o’ them blighted, bleedin’ kings was in the Jolly
Mermaid, large as life, so ’elp me Gawd.”
That brace of exiled mariners, Captain O’Shea and Johnny Kent, gazed
blankly at each other, and tacitly agreed to wait and try to fathom
the riddle. They had dealt with presidents of uneasy republics near
the equator, but a real king, to be surveyed at close range, was a
fascinating novelty.
Johnny Kent had carefully adjusted his spectacles to survey this rare
object, and he now shoved them up beyond his bushy brows before he
hoarsely confided to his comrade:
“I thought they went about disguised, Cap’n Mike, same as we run a
blockade with no lights and the steamer’s name-boards covered up. Is he
the real thing or is it just play-actin’?”
“Europe is full of kings that have been kicked out of their berths,”
answered O’Shea. “Maybe this one is a has-been, but he doesn’t look to
me like a counterfeit. And I would not set him down for a lunatic out
for a stroll with his keeper.”
“He handles himself as sane as you or me,” agreed the chief engineer.
“But this is surely a doggoned queer place to find a stray king.”
“’Tis worth watching, Johnny. I’m on me beam-ends for puzzlement.”
Ere long there appeared from the street a bow-legged, barrel-chested,
hairy-fisted man with a rolling gait, whom a landlubber might have
classified as a rough-and-hearty British seaman accustomed to command
vessels in the merchant trade. A captious critic would have perhaps
surmised that he had been pickled in rum as well as in brine. Glancing
at a card held between a grimy thumb and finger, he asked the bar-maid:
“Is Baron Frederick Martin Strothers hereabouts, my girl? Captain
Handy’s compliments.”
“If you mean the dashin’ young man with a red weskit, ’e is settin’ in
yonder with His Majesty.”
“Right you are!” exclaimed Captain Handy. “My business is with His
Majesty, but the baron has charge of the arrangements as minister of
finance. A nipper of Scotch whiskey, neat, miss, before I talk to ’em.”
“What sort of a king is ’e, and what’s his bloomin’ handle?” she
eagerly besought him. “Are you makin’ gyme of me?”
The hearty British shipmaster looked inscrutable, tossed the whiskey
into his heated coppers, and slowly assured her:
“Women’s curiosity is the fatal weakness of the sex, my dear. A king
is a king wherever you find him. And my advice to you is not to go
braggin’ about and telling all hands that His Majesty has patronized
the Jolly Mermaid.”
He trudged to the rear room, hat in hand, and timidly knocked on the
door. As it was opened, the quick ear of Captain O’Shea heard the
mysterious personage saying to the brisk young man:
“A steamer of the tonnage of this _Tyneshire Glen_ is what I wish. If
your investigation has satisfied you that she is thoroughly sea-worthy
and in good repair and Captain Handy also recommends her----”
The door closed behind Captain Handy, and O’Shea, glancing in that
direction, smiled cynically and observed to Johnny Kent:
“Did ye size up this Handy man? You know the kind. Every big port has
them: broken shipmasters, disrated mates, that aren’t fit to take a
scow to sea.”
“Sure! They’ve borrowed money off me from Baltimore to Singapore. This
Captain Handy must have sighted an easy mark in the offing.”
O’Shea pondered for a moment and asked:
“Did ye hear mention of the _Tyneshire Glen_ steamer just now? Do you
happen to know the vessel? I can’t place her.”
Johnny Kent grunted as if he had sat upon a tack and answered with
heated emphasis:
“Maybe it’s the old _Tyneshire Glen_ that was carryin’ cotton out of
Savannah years ago. I went aboard to see her chief once and her plates
was rusted so thin that I could have thrown a wrench through ’em.”
Captain Handy had left the door of the back room unlatched and a gusty
draught of sea-breeze blew it partly open. The watchful pair in the
tap-room had a glimpse of Captain Handy standing stolidly between His
Majesty and the minister of finance, and heard him huskily declaim:
“The _Tyneshire Glen_ is a bargain at thirty thousand pounds, and you
needn’t take my word for it. Baron Strothers here has interviewed the
brokers that have her for sale, and he knows the price they put on her.”
“I have full confidence in the judgment of my minister of finance,
with Captain Handy’s expert opinion to assist him,” easily replied His
Majesty.
“Most of my papers were lost at sea,” hastily put in Captain Handy, as
if to forestall an awkward question. “They were tied up together, your
Royal ’ighness, when the _Falls of Clyde_ steamer went down and I saved
the lives of forty-seven passengers and was the last man to leave her
when she foundered under my feet. The newspapers praised me so that a
modest man ’ud blush to repeat it.”
“Baron Strothers has investigated your record, so he informs me, and he
advises me that you are to be depended upon,” was the warm assurance.
In the tap-room O’Shea chuckled skeptically and said to Johnny Kent:
“’Tis likely enough he lost his papers, but I mistrust his version of
the story. What kind of a flim-flam is this, anyhow? The king and the
minister of finance are discussing a rotten ship and a rotten skipper
as if the both of them were to be taken seriously.”
After more conversation which the listeners failed to catch, the
trio in the back room ended the session and prepared to leave the
tavern. As they walked out past the bar Captain Handy was arguing with
awkward gestures, the elderly personage was listening courteously,
and the brisk young man alertly kept an eye on both, as though he had
an absorbing interest in the interview. In front of the tavern they
parted, Captain Handy to turn in the direction of the East India Docks,
the puzzling pair of notables to seek the railroad station to London.
Upon O’Shea and Johnny Kent there fell a prolonged spell of
silence. Each was piecing theories together and discarding them as
unsatisfactory. Of one thing they were convinced. This royal visitation
had not been an elaborate hoax, and the explanation of lunacy was
finally and emphatically dismissed.
“’Tis no case of barnacles on the intellect,” was the verdict of
O’Shea, “barrin’ the fact that he ought to have more sense than to
listen to the palaver of a rascal like this Captain Handy. Why didn’t
we think to follow them up and see where they went?”
“I’m too short-winded to make a good sleuth-hound, Cap’n Mike, and it
ain’t dignified for a man of my years.”
“Well, then, who is this Captain Handy?” demanded O’Shea. “We’ll try
another tack.”
He questioned the bar-maid, who was disappointing.
“The man never showed hisself in ’ere before,” said she. “You’re more
likely to find out about ’im at the docks.”
“Say, Cap’n Mike,” exclaimed Johnny Kent with puckered brow, “ain’t
there some kind of a book written about kings, their habits and their
names, and the various breeds of ’em? And where you’re most apt to find
’em? Do they generally run around loose?”
“I’m not personally acquainted with a whole lot of them, Johnny; but as
a rule ’tis safe to bet they don’t come wanderin’ into sailors’ taverns
convoyed by the minister of finance.”
“Suppose we take his word for it,” was the suggestion. “Call him a
king. He’s lookin’ for a ship and a captain, ain’t he?”
“Now you talk hard sense, Johnny. That’s where I pricked up my ears.
Maybe we can cross his bows again if we look sharp.”
Next morning they carefully scrutinized the “Court Circular” of the
London _Times_, and were more at sea than ever at discovering that the
only visiting royalty comprised an unimportant cousin of the house of
Hanover from a German duchy and the dusky ruler of a native state of
India. That a full-fledged king and a minister of his cabinet, both
indubitably Englishmen, could be strolling about London unnoticed by
the newspapers and unknown to the public was fairly incredible, and
yet no mention could anywhere be found of the illustrious patrons of
the Jolly Mermaid, although O’Shea bought the morning journals by the
fistful.
It occurred to him to pay a call at a ship-brokers’ office down in
Leadenhall Street, and Johnny Kent rode with him on top of a ’bus. They
had made the acquaintance of the managing partner of the firm under the
palms of a Venezuelan seaport, and he cherished a strong friendship
for this pair of adventurous rovers. He was anxious to find a ship for
O’Shea, and the latter dropped in now and then in search of news.
The comrades twain were about to dodge through the traffic of
Leadenhall Street and enter the office of their friend when O’Shea
plucked Johnny Kent by the sleeve and pulled him back into an adjacent
door-way. A brisk, sandy-haired young man was also doubling among the
stream of vehicles which roared from curb to curb and aiming his course
for the ship-brokers’ office.
“’Tis the minister of finance, Johnny,” cautiously spoke O’Shea. “Look
at him. There he goes, right into Tavistock & Huntley’s, the same
destination as ours.”
“Why not go in and meet him, Cap’n Mike? Maybe George Huntley will
introduce us and we can slip in a few questions.”
“Because I do not like this sprightly right bower of royalty, Johnny. I
took a violent dislike to the Baron Frederick Martin Strothers at first
sight. And me hunches about people are worth heeding when they take
hold of me as strong as this one did.”
They surmised that the brisk young man with the red waistcoat must
have business to transact with Tavistock & Huntley, for he remained
inside a good half-hour. Then the watchers caught no more than a
farewell glimpse of him as he hastily emerged and popped into a passing
hansom. Thereupon they sauntered into the ship-brokers’ office and
were cordially greeted by George Huntley, managing partner, a stocky,
bald-headed person who looked as substantial as a brick house. The
spirit of romance was in him, however, and he secretly envied O’Shea
his illogical pursuit of hazards for sheer love of them.
Steering them into a small private room, he plumped himself into the
chair at the desk, waved them to a leather-covered lounge, and inquired
with much gusto:
“And how are my disreputable friends this morning? Anything in the
wind?”
“’Tis still blowing dead calm for us, but the weather is suspicious in
one quarter of the compass,” answered O’Shea. “Tell me, George, what
do you know about the young man that just now whisked out of here--the
fancy lad with the loud vest and the high-steppin’ manner?”
Huntley tilted his chair, clasped his hands across a comfortable
waistband, and replied in his deliberate way:
“I have laid eyes on him only twice. His name is Strothers, I believe,
and he calls himself a baron. One of those Continental titles, I fancy.
You buy them, you know. This day of last week he came into our place
with Captain Handy, who used to sail in the Blue Anchor service.”
“Got into trouble with his owners, didn’t he?” interrupted O’Shea, at a
guess.
“Yes. He lost a steamer in the Bay of Biscay, and the evidence went to
show that he was drunk at the time. His certificate was taken away or
suspended; I forget the details. A rather shabby lot is Handy. As I was
about to tell you, O’Shea, the pair of them, Captain Handy and this
spruce young man, Strothers, came in to ask our cash selling-price for
the _Tyneshire Glen_, which is laid up in the East India Docks. We
have no interest in the vessel beyond representing the owners, who want
to get rid of her.”
“And did you give the precious pair of two-spots a price on her?”
blandly inquired O’Shea.
“I offered them the _Tyneshire Glen_ for twenty-four thousand pounds
as she stands,” replied Huntley. “It’s all she’s worth. She is a big
steamer, almost five thousand tons, but she will need a lot of repairs.
Captain Handy claimed that he had found a possible buyer in whose
interests young Strothers was acting. Of course we were willing to pay
Handy a decent commission if the deal went through.”
O’Shea looked sidewise at Johnny Kent, who, on occasions, was bright
enough to see through a hole in a grindstone. They kept their thoughts
to themselves, and O’Shea commented non-committally:
“Of course Captain Handy is entitled to a commission if he finds ye a
customer for the steamer, George. ’Tis an honest chance for the poor
divil to pick up a few dollars. And so the young man, Strothers, came
back this morning? Do I show too much curiosity in asking what he had
to say?”
“You are welcome to all I know. He told me that the gentleman whose
interests he represented had inspected the _Tyneshire Glen_ yesterday
and thought she would answer his purpose. The price was satisfactory
and he would like a three-days’ option, which I was very willing to
give him.”
“And the price was still twenty-four thousand pounds?” violently put
in Johnny Kent with a snort as if his steam were rising.
“Precisely twenty-four thousand pounds, or one hundred and twenty
thousand dollars of your Yankee currency or thereabouts. Are you
thinking of buying her yourself, Johnny?” said Huntley with a broad
smile.
“Not on your life,” was the fervent response. “I’d be afraid to sneeze
on board of her in the docks for fear her rivets would fly off.”
“Oh, she isn’t as bad as all that. A well-built steamer is the
_Tyneshire Glen_, with lots of service in her.”
“What she needs is a new hull, boilers, and engines,” grunted Johnny.
“Say, George Huntley, did this young man, Strothers, mention anything
about buyin’ the steamer for a king that is roamin’ around London
without any tag to him?”
“A king!” ejaculated the ship-broker, blinking like an astonished owl.
“Are you chaps raggin’ me?”
“Maybe the joke is on us, George, or else Cap’n Mike and me have been
seein’ visions and hearin’ things that ain’t so.”
Huntley cast an appealing glance at O’Shea, who said:
“’Tis evident that ye are not acquainted with our particular king,
George. You do not move in royal circles. We will tell ye the answer
later. About this young man that calls himself a baron. Did he leave
any address behind him?”
“Yes. He is staying at the Carleton. If the option expires I shall
take it for granted that he doesn’t want the steamer. If he pays down
the cash I shall be ready to make out the papers and give Captain Handy
his commission. Now you ought to tell me why you are so keen on knowing
all about the business. If you keep mum, you are a pair of blighters
and no friends of mine.”
O’Shea hauled Johnny Kent to his feet and remarked:
“We thank you kindly, George. You are a good-natured man and we have
made a nuisance of ourselves. ’Tis the honest truth that we know very
little more about this young man and the _Tyneshire Glen_ than ye know
yourself. But what we do know we will first investigate.”
“You are conspirators born and bred,” laughed Huntley, rather pleased
to have an ordinary business transaction wrapped in romantic mystery.
“Come and dine with me as soon as you have unravelled the plot.”
They straightway betook themselves to the nearest public-house, where
in a quiet corner a council of war was convened. It was obvious that
they had run athwart a scheme to defraud the confiding purchaser of the
_Tyneshire Glen_. And their sympathies went out strongly to the royal
victim. Whether or not he was a real king was beside the mark. He was
very much the gentleman, and he had trusted too much in the loyalty and
integrity of that enterprising young man who was called the minister of
finance.
“’Tis as plain as the big nose on that red face of yours, Johnny,”
exclaimed O’Shea. “The two crooks are standing in together. Captain
Handy recommends the ship as all right. This Baron Frederick Martin
Strothers backs him up and advises His Majesty to buy her. The two
blackguards get a price of twenty-four thousand pounds from George
Huntley, and then tell this innocent potentate that the price is thirty
thousand pounds. The difference is six thousand pounds--thirty thousand
dollars--which this pair of land-sharks will split up and stick in
their own pockets. And they will doctor the bill of sale so the poor
deluded monarch will never know what happened to him.”
“That was what we heard ’em say in the Jolly Mermaid, Cap’n Mike. The
price was thirty thousand pounds.”
“’Tis me opinion that a minister of finance like this could bankrupt a
kingdom, give him time enough,” said O’Shea. “He is working the game
for all it’s worth. He will loot the treasury as long as it looks
safe and easy, and then he will resign his what-do-ye-call-it--his
portfolio--and leave his buncoed Majesty to figure out the deficit.”
“That poor king deserves to be delivered from his lovin’ friends,”
replied Johnny Kent. “What’s the orders now?”
“We will ring up full speed ahead and find this king. If the minister
of finance is at the Carleton Hotel, ’tis a good bet that His Majesty
is not far away. That busy young man will not separate himself from a
good thing.”
The fashionable Carleton was unfamiliar territory to the inquisitive
mariners, but they strolled boldly through the corridors until they
fetched up in front of a desk presided over by an immaculate clerk with
a languid manner who appeared indifferent to their wants. After waiting
several minutes for some recognition, Captain Michael O’Shea sweetly
remarked:
“Will ye answer a civil question or will I climb over the counter and
jolt you wide-awake?”
The languid person looked attentively at the resolute features of the
speaker and hastily answered:
“Beg pardon--beg pardon--what can I do for you, sir?”
“Tell me if a king is stopping in this hotel of yours, and does he have
a minister of finance called Baron Strothers?”
“Ah, you mean His Majesty, King Osmond of Trinadaro,” and the clerk
delivered these resounding syllables with unction. “Yes, he is a guest
of the hotel.”
“He is a real one, do you get that?” soberly whispered O’Shea to his
comrade before he again addressed the clerk.
“We wish to see him on important business. We will write our names on a
card.”
“Baron Strothers receives such callers as are personally unknown to His
Majesty,” the clerk explained.
“We do not wish to see the young man,” said O’Shea.
“My orders are to send all cards and messages to him,” persisted the
clerk.
The two visitors drew apart from the desk and put their heads together.
“The minister of finance will not let us get within a cable’s length of
his boss if he thinks we are seafarin’ men,” whispered O’Shea.
“The swindler may have took notice of us in the Jolly Mermaid,” growled
Johnny Kent. “We might send up a card and make headway as far as this
Strothers person. Then I could knock him down and sit on his head while
you rummaged the royal apartments and found the king.”
“Your methods might strike these hotel people as violent, Johnny.
You’re a good man at sea, but I would not call ye a diplomat. Anyhow,
we will take a chance of running the blockade that this crooked
minister of finance has established to prevent honest men from talking
to his employer.”
Returning to the desk, O’Shea picked up a pen and wrote on a blank card:
“_Captain Michael O’Shea and John Kent, Esq., U. S. A., to see King
Osmond on a matter that he will find interesting._”
Promptly in answer to this message came word that Baron Strothers would
see the gentlemen. A hotel attendant conducted them to a suite on the
second floor. At the threshold of a sort of anteroom they were met by
the brisk, self-possessed young man, who gazed sharply at the sunburnt
strangers, hesitated a trifle, and invited them to enter. Offering
them cigars, he bade them be seated, and again scrutinized them as if
striving to recall where he might have seen them elsewhere.
Captain O’Shea, at his ease in most circumstances, and particularly now
when he held the whip-hand, asked at once:
“Are we to have the pleasure of paying our respects to His Majesty?”
“You Americans are so delightfully informal,” smiled the minister of
finance. “An audience is arranged beforehand if I consider it worth
while.”
“But this king of yours takes a special interest in ships and sailors,”
suggested O’Shea. “And we have information that he will find useful.”
Baron Frederick Martin Strothers changed color just a trifle and his
manner was perceptibly uneasy as he explained:
“I am awfully sorry, but he is not in at present. He will be
disappointed, I’m sure. You are shipmasters or something of the sort, I
take it.”
“You guess right,” was the dry comment of O’Shea. “I have heard that ye
are fond of talking to seafaring men yourself.”
The shot went home. The young man moved in his chair and looked
painfully uncomfortable. Nervously twisting a cigar in his fingers, he
replied:
“Ah, yes. Now I know. You must have seen me at the East India Docks.”
“There or thereabouts, but no matter,” said O’Shea. “His Majesty is not
in, you say. And when will he be in the hotel again?”
“Not for several hours. He went out with the minister of foreign
affairs to keep an important appointment. Will you state your business
to me? That is the customary procedure.”
Johnny Kent was for denouncing the young man to his face, but O’Shea
nudged him and smoothly made answer:
“It would please us better to see the king himself. We can come again,
or we can look for him on his way in and out of the hotel.”
The young man could not dissemble signs of impatience to be rid of
these pertinacious intruders.
“If you have a ship to sell, or you are looking for positions, this
is only wasting time,” said he. “I presume you heard something of our
errand among the docks.”
“Yes, we have heard of it,” and O’Shea bit off the words. “Well,
Johnny, shall we go below and wait till His Majesty heaves in sight?
This minister of finance will give us no satisfaction. And I am not
used to dealing with understrappers.”
“You are impertinent!” cried the young man. “I have been as courteous
as possible. You will leave at once, or I shall ask the hotel
management to put you out.”
Up from a chair rose the massive bulk of Johnny Kent, and his ample
countenance was truculent as he roared:
“You’ll throw us out, you impudent son of a sea-cook? No, Cap’n Mike,
I won’t shut up. I ain’t built that way. Diplomacy be doggoned. I’m
liable to lose my temper.”
“’Tis a large-sized temper to lose, and I hereby hoist storm-signals,”
said O’Shea with a grin as he neatly tripped the minister of finance,
who was endeavoring to reach an electric push-button.
The fervid declamation of Johnny Kent must have echoed through the
apartments. It sufficed to attract the notice of an erect, elderly
gentleman in another room who opened a door and stared curiously at the
strenuous tableau. At sight of the kindly, refined face with the snowy
mustache and imperial, O’Shea gleefully shouted:
“The king, God bless him! So this bright young minister of finance was
a liar as well as a thief!”
Comically abashed, Johnny Kent mumbled an apology for making such an
uproar, at which the elderly gentleman bowed acknowledgment and said to
the perturbed and rumpled Strothers:
“My dear baron, will you be good enough to explain?”
“These ruffians insisted on seeing you, Your Majesty, and when I tried
to discover their business they called me names and assaulted me,”
sputtered the young man in a heat of virtuous indignation.
“He was afraid of the truth,” cried O’Shea. “We came to tell Your
Majesty that he has cooked up a job to cheat ye out of six thousand
pounds, and we can prove it up to the hilt. We caught him with the
goods.”
“That sounds a whole lot better to me than diplomacy,” approvingly
exclaimed Johnny Kent.
Bewildered by the vehemence of these outspoken visitors, King Osmond
I of Trinadaro turned to the sullen minister of finance and inquired,
still with his placid kindliness of manner:
“These men do not look like ruffians, my dear baron. What are their
names, and who are they? And what is the meaning of this grave charge
they bring against your integrity?”
“I am O’Shea, shipmaster, hailing from the port of New York,” spoke up
the one.
“I am Johnny Kent, chief engineer to Captain Mike O’Shea,” said the
other, “and I hail from the State o’ Maine. And we can show you our
papers. _We_ didn’t lose ’em in the Bay of Biscay.”
Strothers stood biting his nails and shifting from one foot to the
other, for once stripped of his adroit, plausible demeanor, nor could
he find, on the spur of the moment, the right word to say. The royal
personage said it for him.
“I think you had better retire. I wish to hear what Captain O’Shea and
Mr. Kent may have to tell me.”
The amiable monarch was unconsciously swayed by the virile personality
of Captain O’Shea, who dominated the scene as though he were on the
deck of his own ship.
Baron Frederick Martin Strothers made a last attempt to protest, but
Johnny Kent glared at him so wickedly and O’Shea moved a step nearer
with so icy a glint in his gray eye that there was a moment later a
vanished minister of finance.
The etiquette of courts troubled O’Shea not in the least as he
cheerily yet respectfully suggested to the perplexed elderly gentleman:
“Now, King Osmond, if you will please sit down and let us talk things
over with ye as man to man, we’ll tell you how it happened.”
The personage obediently did as he was told, nor could he feel offended
by the shipmaster’s boyish candor. O’Shea chewed on his cigar and his
eyes twinkled as he glanced at the stubborn visage of Johnny Kent,
which was still flushed. His Majesty began to get his wits together and
to wonder why he had permitted this brace of total strangers to take
him by storm. O’Shea broke into his cogitations by explaining:
“You are surprised that ye chucked the trusted minister of finance out
of the room and consented to listen to us at all. In the first place,
we are not askin’ anything of you. What I mean is, we felt bound to put
you next to the dirty deal that was framed up to rob ye.”
“We saw you in the Jolly Mermaid tavern, and we liked your looks,”
ingenuously added Johnny Kent. “We decided to do you a good turn,
whether we ever saw the color of your money or not.”
“And we didn’t like the cut of the jib of your minister of finance,”
resumed O’Shea. “And we were dead sure that Captain Handy was rotten.”
King Osmond earnestly interrupted:
“But I have had all the confidence in the world in Baron Strothers, and
as a British sailor of the tarry breed, Captain Handy----”
“The two of them are tarred with the same brush,” exclaimed O’Shea.
“They fixed it up between them to pay twenty-four thousand pounds for
the _Tyneshire Glen_ and sell her to you for thirty thousand. ’Tis a
simple matter to produce the evidence. Send a messenger to Tavistock &
Huntley in Leadenhall Street. They named the price to Captain Handy and
your precious minister of finance. ’Tis a clear case.”
“You can buy her yourself from George Huntley, and he’ll be darn glad
to get his price,” chimed in Johnny Kent. “That ought to prove it. But
if you’ll listen to me, you’ll have nothin’ to do with the _Tyneshire
Glen_.”
King Osmond’s faith in human nature had been severely jarred, but
somehow he could not doubt the statements of these rugged men who drove
their words home as with a sledge-hammer. Toward the graceless minister
of finance he felt more sorrow than anger as he wove together in his
mind this and that circumstance of previous transactions which should
have made him more vigilant. But the culprit was the son of a dear
friend, and his credentials had been impeccable.
“I shall obtain from Tavistock & Huntley confirmation of your story, as
you suggest,” he slowly replied to O’Shea. “In the meantime I wish you
would tell me about yourselves.”
“We are looking for big risks and big wages,” said O’Shea with a smile.
“Johnny Kent and I are better known in the ports of the Spanish Main
than in London River. We have made voyages to Hayti and Honduras and
Cuba without the consent of the lawful governments, and we know our
trade.”
King Osmond I reflectively stroked his white imperial, and his face
assumed an expression of vivid interest. These men were different from
Captain Handy. They would neither cringe nor lie to him, and they
looked him squarely between the eyes.
“Will you be good enough to come into my own rooms?” said he. “We shall
find more privacy and comfort. I should like to hear of your adventures
along the Spanish Main.”
With a courteous gesture he showed them into a much larger and more
luxurious room which was used as a library or private office, inasmuch
as a large flat-topped desk was strewn with books, pamphlets, and
documents, and more of them were piled on tables and on shelves against
the walls. As temporary headquarters for royalty at work, the room
suggested industry and the administration of large affairs.
So friendly and unconventional was the reception granted them that
Captain O’Shea and Johnny Kent were made to feel that their intrusions
demanded no more apologies. Their curiosity fairly tormented them. It
was on the tips of their tongues to ask the host what kind of a kingdom
was his, and where it was situated, but this would be rudeness. O’Shea
took note of several admiralty charts on the desk, two of them unrolled
with the corners pinned down, and a rule and dividers for measuring
distances.
While O’Shea talked, Johnny Kent let his eyes wander to a small table
at his elbow. It was covered with magazines, government reports, and
newspaper clippings. One of the latter was so placed that he was able
to read it from where he sat, and with absorbed interest he perused the
following paragraphs:
Colonel Osmond George Sydenham-Leach, of the ancient Norfolk
family, has lived on the Continent for the last dozen years, and
is better known to the boulevards of Paris than to London. He was
never considered eccentric until recently when his claim to the
island of Trinadaro in the South Atlantic as a sovereign realm
aroused much interest and amusement. He assumed the title of King
Osmond I.
It is said that he has created an order of nobility, and that
the insignia of the Grand Cross of Trinadaro have been bestowed
upon the fortunate gentlemen composing his cabinet and coterie of
advisers. A Court Circular is expected to appear shortly, and a
diplomatic service will be organized.
Until His Majesty is ready to sail for Trinadaro to occupy his
principality, the royal entourage will be found in the state
apartments of the Hotel Carleton. Elaborate preparations are in
progress for colonizing the island of Trinadaro, and a ship-load of
people and material will leave London in a few weeks.
King Osmond I has a very large fortune. He is unmarried, and his
estates, at his death, will pass to the children of his only
brother, Sir Wilfred Sydenham-Leach of Haselton-on-Trent. The
kinfolk of His Majesty are alarmed, so it is reliably reported,
lest his wealth may be squandered on this curiously mediæval
conception of setting up an independent principality upon an
unproductive, volcanic island in mid-ocean which no nation has
taken the trouble to annex.
Slowly and carefully Johnny Kent possessed himself of this information
with never a flicker of a smile. The solution of the mystery of King
Osmond I impressed him as neither grotesque nor curiously mediæval.
In all London the King of Trinadaro could not have found two men of
readier mind to fall in with his project and pretensions. To play at
being a king on a desert island, to have the means to make it all come
true--why, thought Johnny Kent, and he knew O’Shea must instantly agree
with him, any man worth his salt would jump at the chance.
He was anxious to pass the tidings on to his comrade, and when the
conversation slackened he edged in:
“We must be on our way, Cap’n Mike. His Majesty is good-hearted to
listen to us, but it ain’t polite to talk his ear off.”
With this speech went so elaborate a wink that O’Shea comprehended that
the engineer had something up his sleeve. Their host cordially declared
that he must see them again, and made an appointment for ten o’clock of
the next forenoon. They took their departure after friendly farewells
and steered a course for Blackwall and the tavern of the Jolly Mermaid.
O’Shea was as delighted as a boy to learn that Osmond I was about to
found an island kingdom. It was a more attractive revelation than
if he had been discovered to be the inconsequential ruler of some
effete little domain of Europe. And if one planned to set himself
up in business as a sovereign, it was proper to use all the pomp and
trappings and ceremony that belonged to the game.
“If he is to have a navy,” cried O’Shea as he pounded his friend on the
back, “I know where he can find an admiral and a fleet engineer.”
“Not so fast, Cap’n Mike. I have a notion that he’ll have his own
troubles gettin’ to his kingdom. Any man that can be buncoed as easy as
he was is liable to have all his playthings taken away from him before
he has a chance to use ’em. I’ll feel safer about him when he gets
clear of London River.”
Before seeking the royal audience next morning they went to Leadenhall
Street to see George Huntley. The ship-broker greeted them indignantly.
“You would try to hoodwink me, would you?” exclaimed he. “I have found
out who your mysterious king is. I received a letter from him last
night, asking information about the price of the _Tyneshire Glen_. I
had no idea it was this crazy Colonel Sydenham-Leach that calls himself
ruler of Trinadaro.”
“Own up like a man, George,” shouted O’Shea. “Ye would like nothing
better than to be this kind of a king yourself.”
“You have read my thoughts like a wizard. But, confound you, you have
spoiled the sale of a steamer for me. How about that?”
“We have tried to keep an estimable king from going to Davy Jones’s
locker in a floating coffin that ye call the _Tyneshire Glen_,”
severely retorted O’Shea. “Have ye any steamers that will pass honest
men’s inspection?”
“Plenty of them,” promptly answered Huntley.
“Then we will look at two or three of them to-day, after we have paid
our respects to His Majesty. We will not let him be cheated out of his
eye-teeth. We have decided to protect him. Isn’t that so, Johnny?”
“He needs us, Cap’n Mike.”
Huntley became serious and took them into the rear office before he
confided:
“I don’t know, I’m sure, whether you chaps are joking or not. However,
here is a bit of news for you on the quiet. I met a friend of mine,
a barrister, yesterday. We had luncheon at the Cheshire Cheese and
something or other set him to talking about this Sydenham-Leach affair.
It seems that the lawyers are quite keen about it. The family relations
are planning to kick up a devil of a row, to bring proceedings under
the lunacy act, and prevent this King Osmond from sailing off to his
silly island of Trinadaro. They hate to see a fortune thrown away in
this mad enterprise, as they call it.”
O’Shea was righteously wrathful as he flung out:
“Would they interfere with a gentleman and his diversions? Hasn’t he a
right to spend his money as he pleases? Have ye ever seen him, George?
He is a grand man to meet, and ’tis proud we are to be his friends.”
“Oh, I imagine they will have a job to prove he is insane,” said
Huntley. “But they may make a pot of trouble for him.”
“I suppose they can pester him with all kinds of legal foolishness and
haul him before the courts, and so on,” agreed O’Shea. “It would break
his heart and spoil all his fun. ’Tis an outrageous shame, George. What
is the system in this country when they want to investigate a man’s top
story?”
“I asked the barrister chap,” replied Huntley. “The friends of the
person suspected of being dotty, usually his near relatives, lay the
case before one of the judges in lunacy, and he orders an inquiry,
which is held before a master in lunacy. Then if the alleged lunatic
demands a trial by jury he gets it. If he can’t convince them that he
is sound in the thinker, his estate is put in charge of a committee
duly appointed by law.”
O’Shea listened glumly and glowered his intense displeasure. If the law
could interfere with a man who wished to be king of an island which
nobody else wanted, then the law was all wrong.
“And these indecent relatives who want his money will wait and spring
a surprise on him,” said the aggrieved shipmaster. “They will take his
ship away from him and knock all his beautiful schemes into a cocked
hat.”
“I imagine he would not be allowed to leave England if the proceedings
were started,” said Huntley.
Johnny Kent, who had been darkly meditating, aroused himself to observe
explosively:
“We’ll get him to sea in his ship whenever he wants to sail, and the
relatives and the judges and the masters in lunacy be darned. It ain’t
the first time that you and me have broken laws in a good cause, Cap’n
Mike. You come along with us, George Huntley. We’re on our way to have
a confab with His Majesty, and maybe you can do some business with him
right off the reel. He ought to load his ship and head for blue water
as quick as the Lord will let him.”