Frank Stockton - Mrs. Cliff's Yacht

But Mr. Burke could give her no recent news of Captain Horn and Edna, she having heard from them later than he had; and the only one of the people of the Castor of whom he could tell her was Edward Shirley, who had gone into business.

He had bought a share in a shipyard, and, as he was a man who had a great idea about the lines of a vessel, and all that sort of thing, he had determined to put his money into that business. He was a long-headed fellow, and Burke had no doubt but that he would soon hear of some fine craft coming from the yard of his old shipmate.

"But how about yourself, Mr. Burke? I want to know what has happened to you, and what you intend doing, and how you chanced to be coming this way."

"Oh, I will tell you everything that has happened to me," said Mr. Burke, "and it won't take long; but first let me ask you something, Mrs. Cliff?" and as he spoke he quietly rose and shut the parlor door.

"Now then," said he, as he seated himself, "we have all been in the same box, or, I should say, in the same boxes of different kinds, and although I may not have the right to call myself a friend, I am just as friendly to you as if I was, and feel as if people who have been through what we have ought to stand by each other even after they've got through their hardest rubs.

"Now, Mrs. Cliff, has anything happened to you? Have you had any set-backs? I know that this is a mighty queer world, and that even the richest people can often come down with a sudden thump just as if they had slipped on the ice."

Mrs. Cliff smiled. "Nothing has happened to me," she said. "I have had no set-backs, and I am just as rich to-day, – I should say a great deal richer, than I was on the day when Captain Horn made the division of the treasure. But I know very well why you thought something had happened to me. You did not expect to find me living in this little house."

"No, by the Lord Harry, I didn't!" exclaimed Burke, slapping his knee. "You must excuse me, Mrs. Cliff, for speaking out in that way, but really I never was so much surprised as when I came into your front yard. I thought I would find you in the finest house in the place until you could have a stately mansion built somewhere in the outskirts of the town, where there would be room enough for a park. But when I came to this house, I couldn't help thinking that perhaps some beastly bank had broke, and that your share of the golden business had been swept away. Things like that do happen to women, you know, and I suppose they always will; but I am mighty glad to hear you are all right!

"But, as you have asked me to tell you my story, I will make short work of it, and then I would like to hear what has happened to you, as much as you please to tell me about it.

"Now, when I got my money, Mrs. Cliff, which, when compared to what your share must have been, was like a dory to a three-mast schooner, but still quite enough for me, and, perhaps, more than enough if a public vote could be taken on the subject, I was in Paris, a jolly place for a rich sailor, and I said to myself, —

"'Now, Mr. Burke,' said I, for I might as well begin by using good manners, 'the general disposition of a sea-faring man with a lot of money is to go on a lark, or, perhaps, a good many larks, and so get rid of it and then ship again before the mast for fourteen dollars per month, or thereabouts.'

"But I made up my mind right there on the spot that that sort of thing wouldn't suit me. The very idea of shipping again on a merchant vessel made the blood run cold inside of me, and I swore to myself that I wouldn't do it.

"To be sure, I wouldn't give up all notion of a lark. A sailor with money, – and I don't believe there ever was an able-bodied seaman with more money than I had, – who doesn't lark, at least to some degree, has no right to call himself a whole-souled mariner; so I made up my mind to have one lark and then stop."

Mrs. Cliff's countenance clouded. "I am sorry, Mr. Burke," said she, "that you thought it necessary to do that. I do hope you didn't go on one of those horrible – sprees, do they call them?"

"Oh no!" interrupted Burke, "I didn't do anything of that kind. If I'd begun with a bottle, I'd have ended with nothing but a cork, and a badly burnt one at that. No ma'am! drinking isn't in my line. I don't take anything of that sort except at meals, and then only the best wine in genteel quantities. But I was bound to have one lark, and then I would stop and begin to live like a merchant-tailor, with no family nor poor relations."

"But what did you do?" asked Mrs. Cliff. "If it was a lark without liquor, I want to hear about it."

"It was a temperance lark, ma'am," said Burke, "and this is what it was.

"Now, though I have been to sea ever since I was a boy, I never had command of any kind of craft, and it struck me that I would like to finish up my life on the ocean wave by taking command of a vessel. It is generally understood that riches will give you anything you want, and I said to myself that my riches should give me that. I didn't want a sailin' vessel. I was tired of sailin' vessels. I wanted a steamer, and when I commanded a steamer for a little while I would stop short and be a landsman for the rest of my life.

"So I went up to Brest, where I thought I might find some sort of steamer which might suit me, and in that harbor I did find an English steamer, which had discharged her cargo and was expectin' to sail again pretty much in ballast and brandy, so far as I could make out. I went to this vessel and I made an offer to her captain to charter her for an excursion of one week – that was all I wanted.

"Well, I'm not going to bother you, Mrs. Cliff, with all that was said and done about this little business, which seemed simple enough, but which wasn't. There are people in this world who think that if you have money you can buy anything you want, but such people might as well get ready to change their opinions if they ever expect to come into money."

"That is true," said Mrs. Cliff; "every word of it is true, as I have found out for myself!"

"Well," continued Burke, "there had to be a lot of telegraphin' to the owners in London and a general fuss with the officers of the port about papers, and all that, but I got the business through all right; for if money won't get you everything, it's a great help in making things slip along easy. And so one fine afternoon I found myself on board that steamer as commander for one week.

"Of course, I didn't want to give orders to the crew, but I intended to give my orders to the captain, and tell him what he was to do and what he was not to do for one week. He didn't like that very much, for he was inclined to bulldogism, but I paid him extra wages, and he agreed to knuckle under to me.

"So I gave him orders to sail out of the harbor and straight to the Island of Ushant, some twenty-five miles to the west of northwest.

"'There's no use going there,' said the captain, – his name was Dork, – 'there's nothing on that blasted bit of rock for you to see. There's no port I could run this steamer into.'

"I had been studying out my business on the chart, and this little island just suited my idea, and though the name was 'Ushant,' I said to him, 'You shall,' and I ordered him to sail to that island and lay to a mile or two to the westward; and as to the landing, he needn't talk about that until I mentioned it myself.

"So when we got about a couple of miles to the west of Ushant, we lay to. Now I knew we were on the forty-eighth parallel of latitude, for I had looked that out on the chart, so I said to Captain Dork, —

"'Now, sir!' says I, 'I want you to head your vessel, sir, due west, and then to steam straight ahead for a hundred miles, keepin' your vessel just as near as you can on that line of latitude.'"