It was quite evident that he saw
no matter for conscience in the smuggling of Chinamen across the,
Canadian border at thirty dollars a head--a venture in which he
had had the assistance of the prodigal son of an American divine
of international renown. The trade to Peruvian insurgents of
condemned rifles was to be regretted only because the ring
manipulating it was broken up. The appropriation of a schooner in
the harbor of Callao was a story in itself; while the robbery of
thirty thousand dollars' worth of sea-otter skins from a Russian
trading-post in Alaska, accomplished chiefly through the agency of
a barrel of rum manufactured from sugar-cane, was a veritable
achievement.
He had been born, so he told them, in Winchester, in England, and--
Heaven save the mark!--had been brought up with a view of taking
orders. For some time he was a choir boy in the great Winchester
Cathedral; then, while yet a lad, had gone to sea. He had been
boat-steerer on a New Bedford whaler, and struck his first whale
when only sixteen. He had filibustered down to Chili; had acted
as ice pilot on an Arctic relief expedition; had captained a crew
of Chinamen shark-fishing in Magdalena Bay, and had been nearly
murdered by his men; had been a deep-sea diver, and had burst his
ear-drums at the business, so that now he could blow tobacco smoke
out of his ears; he had been shipwrecked in the Gilberts, fought
with the Seris on the lower California Islands, sold champagne--
made from rock candy, effervescent salts, and Reisling wine--to
the Coreans, had dreamed of "holding up" a Cunard liner, and had
ridden on the Strand in a hansom with William Ewart Gladstone.
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