The King and Captain O'Shea/Chapter 5

Before seeking the royal audience next morning, they went to Leadenhall Street to see George Huntley. The ship broker greeted them indignantly.

"You would try to hoodwink me, would you?" exclaimed he. "I have found out who your mysterious king is. I received a letter from him last night, asking information about the price of the Tyneshire Glen. By Jove, I had no idea it was this crazy Colonel Sydenham-Leach, who calls himself ruler of Trinadaro."

"Own up like a man, George," shouted O'Shea. "You would like nothing better than to be this kind of a king yourself."

The stolid-looking ship broker laughed, and confessed:

"You have read my thoughts like a wizard. It would be a jolly lark—what! But, confound you, you have spoiled the sale of a steamer for me. How about that?"

"We've tried to keep an estimable king from going to in a floating coffin that ye call the Tyneshire Glen," severely retorted O'Shea. "If he will sign us on as councilors, we will find him a real ship, and we will recommend him to deal with you. Have ye any steamers that will pass honest men's inspection?"

"Plenty of them," promptly answered Huntley.

"Then we will look at two or three of them after we have paid our respects to his majesty. We'll not let him be cheated out of his eyeteeth. We have decided to protect him. He belongs to us. Isn't that so, Johnny?"

"He needs us bad, Cap'n Mike."

Huntley became serious, and took them into the rear office before he confided:

"I don't know, I'm sure, whether you chaps are joking or not. However, here is a bit of news for you on the quiet. I met a friend of mine—a barrister—yesterday. We had luncheon at the Cheshire Cheese, and something or other set him to talking about this Sydenham-Leach affair. It seems that the lawyers are quite keen about it. The family relations are planning to kick up a devil of a row, to bring proceedings under the lunacy act, and prevent this King Osmond from sailing off to his silly island of Trinadaro. They hate to see a fortune thrown away in this mad enterprise, as they call it."

O'Shea was righteously wrathful as he flung out:

"The mean-spirited, meddlesome skunks! Would they interfere with a gentleman and his diversions? Hasn't he a right to spend his money as he pleases? Have ye ever seen him, George? He is a grand man to meet, and 'tis proud we are to be his friends."

"Oh, I fancy they will have a job to prove he is insane," said Huntley. "But they may make a pot of trouble for him."

"I suppose they can pester him with all kinds of legal foolishness, and haul him before the courts, and so on," agreed O'Shea. "It would break his heart, and spoil all his fun. 'Tis an outrageous shame, George. What is the system in this country when they want to investigate a man's top story."

"I asked the barrister chap," replied Huntley. "The friends of the person suspected of being dotty—generally the near relatives—lay the case before one of the judges in lunacy, and he orders an inquiry, which is held before one of the masters in lunacy. Then if the alleged lunatic demands a trial by jury he gets it. If he can't convince them that he is sound in the thinker, then his estate is put in charge of a committee duly appointed by law."

O'Shea listened glumly, and glowered his intense displeasure. If the law could interfere with a man who wished to be a king on an island which nobody else wanted, then the law was all wrong.

"And these indecent relatives who want his money will wait and spring a surprise on him," said the aggrieved shipmaster. "They will take his ship away from him, and knock all his beautiful schemes into a cocked hat."

"I imagine he would not be allowed to leave England if the proceedings were started," said Huntley.

Johnny Kent, who had been darkly meditating, aroused himself to shout explosively:

"We'll get him to sea in his ship whenever he wants to sail, and the relatives and the judges and the masters in lunacy be darned. It ain't the first time that you and me have broken laws in a good cause, Cap'n Mike. You come along with us, George Huntley. We're on our way to have a confab with his majesty, and maybe you can do some business with him right off the reel. He ought to load his ship and head for blue water as quick as the Lord will let him. If he's a lunatic, then the most of us is queer."

"Without bragging about ourselves, I guess we can take his majesty to sea whenever he wants to go," quoth Captain O'Shea.