There's a good many ways, but
not so many as you'd think; and not one that has any
mortal thing to do with Trent. Trent and his whole
racket has got to do with nothing--that's the bed-rock
fact; there's no sense to it, and no use in it, and no
story to it--it's a beastly dream. And don't you run
away with that notion that landsmen take about ships.
A society actress don't go around more publicly than
what a ship does, nor is more interviewed, nor more
humbugged, nor more run after by all sorts of little
fussinesses in brass buttons. And more than an
actress, a ship has a deal to lose; she's capital, and
the actress only character--if she's that. The ports
of the world are thick with people ready to kick a
captain into the penitentiary if he's not as bright as
a dollar and as honest as the morning star; and what
with Lloyd keeping watch and watch in every corner of
the three oceans, and the insurance leeches, and the
consuls, and the Customs bugs, and the medicos, you can
only get the idea by thinking of a landsman watched by
a hundred and fifty detectives, or a stranger in a
village down east.
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