The Promotion of
the Admiral
And Other Sea Comedies
By
Morley Roberts
Author of
"The Colossus," "The Fugitives," etc.
Illustrated
BOSTON * L. C. PAGE
& COMPANY * Publishers
Copyright, 1902, 1903
By THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY
Copyright, 1903
By L. C. PAGE & COMPANY
(INCORPORATED)
All rights reserved
Third Impression
Published August, 1903
THE WORKS OF
MORLEY ROBERTS
The Idlers
Lady Penelope
Rachel Marr
The Promotion of the Admiral
L. C. PAGE COMPANY
New England Building
Boston, Mass.
CONTENTS
I. The Promotion of the Admiral
II. The Settlement with Shanghai Smith
III. The Policy of the Potluck
IV. The Crew of the Kamma Funder
V. The Rehabilitation of the Vigia
VI. Three in a Game
VII. The Man from Abo
VIII. The Scuttling of the Pandora
THE PROMOTION OF THE ADMIRAL.
Mr. Smith, who ran a sailors' boarding-housein that part of San Franciscoknown as the Barbary Coast, was absolutelysui generis. If any drunken scallawag ofa scholar, who had drifted ashore on hisboarding-house mud-flats, had ventured ina moment of alcoholic reminiscence to say soin the classic tongue, Shanghai Smith wouldhave "laid him out cold" with anything handy,from a stone-ware match-box to an emptybottle. But if that same son of culture had usedhis mother tongue, as altered for popular usein the West, and had murmured: "Jerusalembut Mr. Smith's the daisy of all!" Smithwould have thrown out his chest and blownthrough his teeth a windy oath and guessedhe was just so.
"Say it and mean it, that's me," said Smith."I'm all right. But call me hog and I amhog; don't you forget it!"
Apparently all the world called him "hog." Forthat he was no better than one, whetherhe walked, or ate, or drank, or slept, wasobvious to any sailor with an open eye.But he was hard and rough and tough, andhad the bull-headed courage of a mad steercombined with the wicked cunning of amonkey.
"Don't never play upon me," he saidoften. "For 'get even' is my motter. There