And then the inconceivable and monstrous happened once more.
Before
Roscoe could arrive there arrived another man. He was a United
States marshal. He tacked a notice on the Snark's brave mast so
that all on the wharf could read that the Snark had been libelled
for debt. The marshal left a little old man in charge of the Snark,
and himself went away. I had no longer any control of the Snark,
nor of her wonderful bow. The little old man was now her lord and
master, and I learned that I was paying him three dollars a day for
being lord and master. Also, I learned the name of the man who had
libelled the Snark. It was Sellers; the debt was two hundred and
thirty-two dollars; and the deed was no more than was to be expected
from the possessor of such a name. Sellers! Ye gods! Sellers!
But who under the sun was Sellers? I looked in my cheque-book and
saw that two weeks before I had made him out a cheque for five
hundred dollars. Other cheque-books showed me that during the many
months of the building of the Snark I had paid him several thousand
dollars. Then why in the name of common decency hadn't he tried to
collect his miserable little balance instead of libelling the Snark?
I thrust my hands into my pockets, and in one pocket encountered the
cheque-hook and the dater and the pen, and in the other pocket the
gold money and the paper money.
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