"Try th' native wine, Capt'n," suggested the chief-engineer.
"I have a picture of Cap'n Flanagan drinkin' the misnamed vinegar. No Dago's bare fut on the top o' mine, when I'm takin' a glass. An' that's th' way they make ut. This Napoleyun wus a fine man. He pushed 'em round some."
"Sure, he had Irish blood in 'im, somewheres," Holleran assented. "But I say," suddenly stretching his lean neck, "will ye look t' see who's comin' along!"
Flanagan stared. "If ut ain't that son-of-a-gun ov a Picard, I'll eat my hat!" The captain grew purple. "An' leavin' th' ship without orders!"
"Watch me!" said Flanagan, rising and squaring his peg.
Picard, arrayed in clean white flannels, white shoes, a panama set rakishly on his handsome head, his fingers twirling a cane, came head-on into the storm. The very jauntiness of his stride was as a red rag to the captain. So then, a hand, heavy and charged with righteous anger, descended upon Picard's shoulder.
"Right about face an' back to th' ship, fast as yer legs c'n make ut!"
Picard calmly shook off the hand, and, adding a vigorous push which sent the captain staggering among the little iron-tables, proceeded nonchalantly. Holleran leaped to his feet, but there was a glitter in Picard's eye that did not promise well for any rough-and-tumble fight. Picard's muscular shoulders moved off toward the vanishing point. Holleran turned to the captain, and with the assistance of a waiter, the two righted the old man.
"Do you speak English?" roared the old sailor.
The waiter, in reverent tones, declared that the gentleman referred to was well known in Ajaccio, that he had spent the previous winter there, and that he was no less a person than the Duke of--But the waiter never completed the sentence. The title was enough for the irascible Flanagan.
"Th'--hell--he--is!" The captain subsided into the nearest chair, bereft of future speech, which is a deal of emphasis to put on the phrase. Picard, a duke, and only that morning his hands had been yellow with the stains of the donkey-engine oil! And by and by the question set alive his benumbed brain; what was a duke doing on the yacht _Laura_? "Holleran, we go t' the commodore. The devil's t' pay. What's a dook doin' on th' ship, and we expectin' to dig up gold in yonder mountains? Look alive, man; they's villany afoot!"
