IN THE CAPTAIN'S CABIN

Auckland Star, Volume L, Issue 254, 25 October 1919, Page 17

IN THE CAPTAIN'S CABIN

I (By CAPTAIN WALTER MANNING.) I ■ No. VII. ' i There is a story told about a politician, who, on the eve ol a grave political crisis, paid an unexpected visit, during the midnight hours, to the editor of a irreat daily newspaper. His business was to induce a support which he felt his party had not—but ougnt to havi! —received. The nature of the issue at stake is immaterial to the story, which rests solely upon the fact that the visitor was a very clever man; and, in putting his case, employed a Machiavellian subtlety and finesse (tinged with delicately conveyed flattery) which would have tickled the vanity of, and captured, a less astute man than the editor. The latter listened with great attention, but at the first smell of "soft soap" ■ picked up tbe corner of the table-cloth and looked under the table, a proceeding which puzzled his visitor though he made no comment. 'Later on when the lubricating element became more apparent, the editor repeated the act. This time the politician wns surprised into asking: "What are you looking under the table for?" "I'm looking," replied tbe editor quietly "to see who's pulling my leg!" Those journalists ane pressmen who have spent'mutually enjoyable evenings in my cabin, will (I feel assured), when they read what I have to say about them, see no necessity for "looking under the table!" Most sailors, especially steamship skippers, are as wary of reporters as a cat is of a fox-terrier. They dislike and treat them with reticence, for fear of what they may put into print. 1 always liked them for what they kept out! My experience has been that many of those small troubles and incidents which occur on board ship, and cannot escape mention in the papers, have been c!ut down to brief, plain "pars," instead of being made conspicuous by big head-lines and variegated with purple patches of sensationalism. When travelling, any of those pressmen who knew mc rarely failed to look mc up, and those who didn't, came along and introduced themselves. They came, not merely to see the skipper, but to meet "a freak" — "el strange combination" —who had smelt printer's ink as well as salt-water, and to whom their companionship was as exhilarating as a glass of champagne. Of the field-nights we had I could fill a book. Often till the early hours of the morning we would talk books, authors, poets, and every kind of scribe that ever wielded a .pej. The styles of writers—ancient, modern and contemporary—would pass in review and be criticised and ranged in order of favour. Personal reminiscences would flow; memories would be revived of my prenautical days (as a London apprentice) when I mixed with "devils" and "comps.," and' learned to love my Fleet Street and Fetter Lane like Dr. Johnson; funny stories of composing room complications, bad caligraphy, "coups" and tilings that were "slept on" too long, would be told; Fielding, Smollett, Richardson, Dean Swift, Sterne, Cervantes, and—modern-wards—Scott, Balzac, BulwesvL} .ton, Dickehs, Thackeray, Tro!lope, and every writer from the" Charlie Chaplins of literature (who made fortunes) to the geniuses and great purists) were torn from their graves and overhauled. The psychology of the pen would'be dealt with; t;ie how, when and where "the Divine afflatus" would descend on various writers; their lives, literary, and domestic, and their ways and in some cases their tragic and ea"rly deaths. These chats were most beneficial to mc. Most notably; in one instance, was I guarded against a danger. It was so clearly demonstrated by the fate of Poe, Guy de Maupassant and a host of others, that short-story writers die young that I checked my aspirations towards that speciality till I had passed the age of sixty! In connection with mood, habit, and other idiosyncracies, in producing a facile pen, it was interesting to hear of Bret Harte, who wrote well or badly according to the furnishing of the room he used; of Thackeray, who romped boyishly between fits of literary work; of David Christie Murray, who said: "1 can never write unless I smoke," and then added scntentiously: "Some of mv critics say that I ought to leave oftsmoking! "-and of hundreds of other oases of eccentricity. Comradeship between those who have the literary art and even those who have the temperament, but not the art, have no sex ___. rations. X^ De "■*£' / fter hein S s t™k on the bridge with fog," I came down after it cleared, about 11 -p.m., to run against a lady journalist at the bottom of the bridge ladder. We had never met before, , 'Out had exchanged courtesies and friendly sympathies by letters and authorc copies." The deck wa 8 deserted, the weather calm but cold, but ' T?_i. rt ; c m ! nute 9 we were having a dei lightful tete-a-tete, the proprieties being ' 7 guaranteed by my official position and—the hat she wore! We were like • Lyndall and Waldo in the "Story of an i African Farm." We forgot that she was . a woman and I a man; we were merely - 'things that could think." For two , hours we sat on a deck-seat oblivious ot the temperature, and exchanged opinions and experiences. Hers, in various parts of the world, and often in strange com- j pany, were most interesting. I One evening, when two or three scribes i and scribblers were gathered in my l cabin, a debate took place as to whether the best literary ability could be ac- ' quired or whether it ran in the blood . like a wooden leg. Also, whether the - talent (or curse) should be encouraged in the young or whether it was better to 1 "thump it out of them" when you caught ; them at it. Argument on the point of i narrative ability produced the following f story:— = 3 There was once a pious old gentleman " taking a quiet walk along a country - road, which ran—as so many roads do in j New Zealand—along a line of railway. 1 Ac he wandered along he came to a gang of navvies and other workmen who were _ repairing a culvert and laying down fresh s. rails. When abreast of the group the old " gentleman lingered and watched. Among " the hustlers was a navvy of herculean i, proportions driving in big spike nails c with a sledge hammer. His aim was y marvellously accurate, but unfortunately J, he was accidently jogged by one of his fellow-workmen and, missing the naii- ] head, struck his foot. He dropped the c hammer, picked up his foot, and, coml mencing with relegating his clumsy come rade to the hottest of hot regions and 1 casting reflections on the legitimacy of o his birth and the moral character of his _ immediate feminine progenitors, gave r vent in a lurid flow of blasphemy and 3 obscenity which made the surrounding . air putrid. - The old gentleman, horror-stricken ... and shocked, lifted his hands in pious i protest and said: "Oh! my man! my i man! Wherever did you learn language , Uk_ ■that?"

i-e navvy dropped his foot and, evelng the old gentleman from head to foot in the contemptuous way that a genius would glance at a gaby, replied: "Guvnor! it can ' t ]ear n t- T _, g a D i an kv gift!" No more argument was required. During the last forty years the travelling .public have been," to mc, a kind of itinerant encyclopaedia—loose leaves from A to Zturning up in a haphazard way and often when required. ' They did not, however, always correspond with their lettering. I have learnt'sometaing about military strategy from a lawyer; acoustics 'from a commercial traveller; equity and law from a soldier; poetry from a trades-union secretary; moral philosophy from a billiard-marker; and anatomy and physiology from a veterinary surgeon. A chemist taught mc how to retain perfect health without using drugs, and I am indebted to a Colonial Treasurer for showing mc some physical culture exercises which increased my chest expansion, and enabled mc (like Bombardier Wells) to "get back my lost punch." Yet from no class of men have I received more benefit, kindly sympathy and inspiration, than from my many friends on the New Zealand Press. Next Saturday— "GENTLEMEN OF THE WIG AND GOWN."