Page:The Great Secret.djvu/200

184 Anarchists; that is, if any community outside their own could have appealed to them. These sailors were democratic to the back-bone, and none of them had pretentions of belonging to the doomed class of capitalists, since they worked for their own hands and divided fairly what profits they made out of their trade. They were democrats and socialists, but they believed in a deity, and repudiated murder and sneaking acts of violence; therefore they were as much enemies to these Anarchists as if they had been wealthy capitalists or bloated aristocrats. They liked work also, which was the abhorrence of the others.

Father Abraham, as his crew called him, was hospitable, confiding, and free with his guests, but when once his anchor was weighed and his sails spread, he limited them in their sphere of action and put them strictly on the liberties of passengers. He was the ship's master, purser, and doctor as well, kept his medicine chest under lock and key in his own cabin, and would allow no interference in any of these departments, which he regarded as his own.

"I guess you air a smart medical professor on dry land," he said, when the doctor offered his services, "but I know the constitutions of my men and what they want when they are afloat."

"But surely you will not object to me looking after my own friends, captain?"

"Not at all, doctor. When you want any drugs, tell me what they are, and the quantity required, and I'll sarve you out the dose. I was in a drug store myself once upon a time, in my young days, before I took to the sea, so I calculate that I do know a fair amount about drugs and measurements. You write out the prescription and I'll sarve out."