“‘Man overboard,’ said a deep voice behind me. Turning round, I saw a fellow I knew slightly, a West Australian; Chester was his name. He, too, had been looking after Jim. He was a man with an immense girth of chest, a rugged, clean-shaved face of mahogany colour, and two blunt tufts of iron-grey, thick wiry hairs on his upper lip. He had been pearler, wrecker, trader, whaler, too, I believe; in his own words—anything and everything a man may be at sea, but a pirate. The Pacific, north and south, was his proper hunting-ground; but he had wandered so far afield looking for a cheap steamer to buy. Lately he had discovered—so he said—a guano island somewhere, but its approaches were dangerous, and the anchorage, such as it was, could not be considered safe, to say the least of it. ‘As good as a gold-mine,’ he would exclaim. ‘Right bang in the middle of the Walpole Reefs, and if it’s true enough that you can get no holding-ground anywhere in less than forty fathom, then what of that? There are the hurricanes, too. But it’s a first-rate thing. As good as a gold-mine—better! Yet there’s not a fool of them that will see it. I can’t get a skipper or a shipowner to go near the place. So I made up my mind to cart the blessed stuff myself.’…This was what he required a steamer for, and I knew he was just then negotiating enthusiastically with a Parsee firm for an old, brig-rigged, sea-anachronism of ninety horse-power. We had met and spoken together several times. He looked knowingly after Jim. ‘Takes it to heart?’ he asked scornfully. ‘Very much,’ I said. ‘Then he’s no good,’ he opined, ‘What’s all the to-do about? A bit of ass’s skin. That never yet made a man. You must see things exactly as they are—if you don’t, you may just as well give in at once. You will never do anything in this world. Look at me. I made it a practice never to take anything to heart.’ ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘you see things as they are.’ ‘I wish I could see my partner coming along, that’s what I wish to see, he said. ‘Know my partner? Old Robinson. Yes; the Robinson. Don’t you know? The notorious Robinson. The man who smuggled more opium and bagged more seals in his time than any loose Johnny now alive. They say he used to board the sealing-schooners up Alaska way when the fog was so thick that the Lord God, He alone, could tell one man from another. Holy-Terror Robinson. That’s the man. He is with me in that guano thing. The best chance he ever came across in his life.’ He put his lips to my ear. ‘Cannibal?—well, they used to give him the name years and years ago. You remember the story? A shipwreck on the west side of Stewart Island; that’s right; seven of them got ashore, and it seems they did not get on very well together. Some men are too cantankerous for anything—don’t know how to make the best of a bad job—don’t see things as they are—as they are, my boy! And then what’s the consequence? Obvious! Trouble, trouble; as likely as not a knock on the head; and serve ’em right, too. That sort is the most useful when it’s dead. The story goes that a boat of Her Majesty’s ship Wolverine found him kneeling on the kelp, naked as the day he was born, and chanting some psalmtune or other; light snow was falling at the time. He waited till the boat was an oar’s length from the shore, and then up and away. They chased him for an hour up and down the boulders, till a marine flung a stone that took him behind the ear providentially and knocked him senseless. Alone? Of course. But that’s like that tale of sealing-schooners; the Lord God knows the right and the wrong of that story. The cutter did not investigate much. They wrapped him in a boat-cloak and took him off as quick as they could, with a dark night coming on, the weather threatening, and the ship firing recall guns every five minutes. Three weeks afterwards he was as well as ever. He didn’t allow any fuss that was made on shore to upset him; he just shut his lips tight, and let people screech. It was bad enough to have lost his ship, and all he was worth besides, without paying attention to the hard names they called him. That’s the man for me.’ He lifted his arm for a signal to some one down the street. ‘He’s got a little money, so I had to let him into my thing. Had to! It would have been sinful to throw away such a find, and I was cleaned out myself. It cut me to the quick, but I could see the matter just as it was, and if I must share—thinks I—with any man, then give me Robinson. I left him at breakfast in the hotel to come to court, because I’ve an idea…Ah! Good morning, Captain Robinson…Friend of mine, Captain Robinson.’