Sometimes I think Wolf Larsen mad, or half-mad at least, what of hisstrange moods and vagaries. At other times I take him for a great man, agenius who has never arrived. And, finally, I am convinced that he isthe perfect type of the primitive man, born a thousand years orgenerations too late and an anachronism in this culminating century ofcivilization. He is certainly an individualist of the most pronouncedtype. Not only that, but he is very lonely. There is no congenialitybetween him and the rest of the men aboard ship. His tremendous virilityand mental strength wall him apart. They are more like children to him,even the hunters, and as children he treats them, descending perforce totheir level and playing with them as a man plays with puppies. Or elsehe probes them with the cruel hand of a vivisectionist, groping about intheir mental processes and examining their souls as though to see of whatsoul-stuff is made.

I have seen him a score of times, at table, insulting this hunter orthat, with cool and level eyes and, withal, a certain air of interest,pondering their actions or replies or petty rages with a curiosity almostlaughable to me who stood onlooker and who understood. Concerning hisown rages, I am convinced that they are not real, that they are sometimesexperiments, but that in the main they are the habits of a pose orattitude he has seen fit to take toward his fellow-men. I know, with thepossible exception of the incident of the dead mate, that I have not seenhim really angry; nor do I wish ever to see him in a genuine rage, whenall the force of him is called into play.

While on the question of vagaries, I shall tell what befell ThomasMugridge in the cabin, and at the same time complete an incident uponwhich I have already touched once or twice. The twelve o’clock dinnerwas over, one day, and I had just finished putting the cabin in order,when Wolf Larsen and Thomas Mugridge descended the companion stairs.Though the cook had a cubby-hole of a state-room opening off from thecabin, in the cabin itself he had never dared to linger or to be seen,and he flitted to and fro, once or twice a day, a timid spectre.

“So you know how to play ‘Nap,’” Wolf Larsen was saying in a pleased sortof voice. “I might have guessed an Englishman would know. I learned itmyself in English ships.”

Thomas Mugridge was beside himself, a blithering imbecile, so pleased washe at chumming thus with the captain. The little airs he put on and thepainful striving to assume the easy carriage of a man born to a dignifiedplace in life would have been sickening had they not been ludicrous. Hequite ignored my presence, though I credited him with being simply unableto see me. His pale, wishy-washy eyes were swimming like lazy summerseas, though what blissful visions they beheld were beyond myimagination.

“Get the cards, Hump,” Wolf Larsen ordered, as they took seats at thetable. “And bring out the cigars and the whisky you’ll find in myberth.”

I returned with the articles in time to hear the Cockney hinting broadlythat there was a mystery about him, that he might be a gentleman’s songone wrong or something or other; also, that he was a remittance man andwas paid to keep away from England—“p’yed ’ansomely, sir,” was the way heput it; “p’yed ’ansomely to sling my ’ook an’ keep slingin’ it.”

I had brought the customary liquor glasses, but Wolf Larsen frowned,shook his head, and signalled with his hands for me to bring thetumblers. These he filled two-thirds full with undiluted whisky—“agentleman’s drink?” quoth Thomas Mugridge,—and they clinked their glassesto the glorious game of “Nap,” lighted cigars, and fell to shuffling anddealing the cards.

They played for money. They increased the amounts of the bets. Theydrank whisky, they drank it neat, and I fetched more. I do not knowwhether Wolf Larsen cheated or not,—a thing he was thoroughly capable ofdoing,—but he won steadily. The cook made repeated journeys to his bunkfor money. Each time he performed the journey with greater swagger, buthe never brought more than a few dollars at a time. He grew maudlin,familiar, could hardly see the cards or sit upright. As a preliminary toanother journey to his bunk, he hooked Wolf Larsen’s buttonhole with agreasy forefinger and vacuously proclaimed and reiterated, “I got money,I got money, I tell yer, an’ I’m a gentleman’s son.”

Wolf Larsen was unaffected by the drink, yet he drank glass for glass,and if anything his glasses were fuller. There was no change in him. Hedid not appear even amused at the other’s antics.

In the end, with loud protestations that he could lose like a gentleman,the cook’s last money was staked on the game—and lost. Whereupon heleaned his head on his hands and wept. Wolf Larsen looked curiously athim, as though about to probe and vivisect him, then changed his mind, asfrom the foregone conclusion that there was nothing there to probe.

“Hump,” he said to me, elaborately polite, “kindly take Mr. Mugridge’sarm and help him up on deck. He is not feeling very well.”

“And tell Johnson to douse him with a few buckets of salt water,” headded, in a lower tone for my ear alone.

I left Mr. Mugridge on deck, in the hands of a couple of grinning sailorswho had been told off for the purpose. Mr. Mugridge was sleepilyspluttering that he was a gentleman’s son. But as I descended thecompanion stairs to clear the table I heard him shriek as the firstbucket of water struck him.

Wolf Larsen was counting his winnings.

“One hundred and eighty-five dollars even,” he said aloud. “Just as Ithought. The beggar came aboard without a cent.”

“And what you have won is mine, sir,” I said boldly.

He favoured me with a quizzical smile. “Hump, I have studied somegrammar in my time, and I think your tenses are tangled. ‘Was mine,’ youshould have said, not ’is mine.’”

“It is a question, not of grammar, but of ethics,” I answered.

It was possibly a minute before he spoke.

“D’ye know, Hump,” he said, with a slow seriousness which had in it anindefinable strain of sadness, “that this is the first time I have heardthe word ‘ethics’ in the mouth of a man. You and I are the only men onthis ship who know its meaning.”

“At one time in my life,” he continued, after another pause, “I dreamedthat I might some day talk with men who used such language, that I mightlift myself out of the place in life in which I had been born, and holdconversation and mingle with men who talked about just such things asethics. And this is the first time I have ever heard the wordpronounced. Which is all by the way, for you are wrong. It is aquestion neither of grammar nor ethics, but of fact.”

“I understand,” I said. “The fact is that you have the money.”

His face brightened. He seemed pleased at my perspicacity. “But it isavoiding the real question,” I continued, “which is one of right.”

“Ah,” he remarked, with a wry pucker of his mouth, “I see you stillbelieve in such things as right and wrong.”

“But don’t you?—at all?” I demanded.

“Not the least bit. Might is right, and that is all there is to it.Weakness is wrong. Which is a very poor way of saying that it is goodfor oneself to be strong, and evil for oneself to be weak—or better yet,it is pleasurable to be strong, because of the profits; painful to beweak, because of the penalties. Just now the possession of this money isa pleasurable thing. It is good for one to possess it. Being able topossess it, I wrong myself and the life that is in me if I give it to youand forego the pleasure of possessing it.”

“But you wrong me by withholding it,” I objected.

“Not at all. One man cannot wrong another man. He can only wronghimself. As I see it, I do wrong always when I consider the interests ofothers. Don’t you see? How can two particles of the yeast wrong eachother by striving to devour each other? It is their inborn heritage tostrive to devour, and to strive not to be devoured. When they departfrom this they sin.”

“Then you don’t believe in altruism?” I asked.

He received the word as if it had a familiar ring, though he pondered itthoughtfully. “Let me see, it means something about coöperation, doesn’tit?”

“Well, in a way there has come to be a sort of connection,” I answeredunsurprised by this time at such gaps in his vocabulary, which, like hisknowledge, was the acquirement of a self-read, self-educated man, whom noone had directed in his studies, and who had thought much and talkedlittle or not at all. “An altruistic act is an act performed for thewelfare of others. It is unselfish, as opposed to an act performed forself, which is selfish.”

He nodded his head. “Oh, yes, I remember it now. I ran across it inSpencer.”

“Spencer!” I cried. “Have you read him?”

“Not very much,” was his confession. “I understood quite a good deal of_First Principles_, but his _Biology_ took the wind out of my sails, andhis _Psychology_ left me butting around in the doldrums for many a day.I honestly could not understand what he was driving at. I put it down tomental deficiency on my part, but since then I have decided that it wasfor want of preparation. I had no proper basis. Only Spencer and myselfknow how hard I hammered. But I did get something out of his _Data ofEthics_. There’s where I ran across ‘altruism,’ and I remember now howit was used.”

I wondered what this man could have got from such a work. Spencer Iremembered enough to know that altruism was imperative to his ideal ofhighest conduct. Wolf Larsen, evidently, had sifted the greatphilosopher’s teachings, rejecting and selecting according to his needsand desires.

“What else did you run across?” I asked.

His brows drew in slightly with the mental effort of suitably phrasingthoughts which he had never before put into speech. I felt an elation ofspirit. I was groping into his soul-stuff as he made a practice ofgroping in the soul-stuff of others. I was exploring virgin territory.A strange, a terribly strange, region was unrolling itself before myeyes.

“In as few words as possible,” he began, “Spencer puts it something likethis: First, a man must act for his own benefit—to do this is to be moraland good. Next, he must act for the benefit of his children. And third,he must act for the benefit of his race.”

“And the highest, finest, right conduct,” I interjected, “is that actwhich benefits at the same time the man, his children, and his race.”

“I wouldn’t stand for that,” he replied. “Couldn’t see the necessity forit, nor the common sense. I cut out the race and the children. I wouldsacrifice nothing for them. It’s just so much slush and sentiment, andyou must see it yourself, at least for one who does not believe ineternal life. With immortality before me, altruism would be a payingbusiness proposition. I might elevate my soul to all kinds of altitudes.But with nothing eternal before me but death, given for a brief spellthis yeasty crawling and squirming which is called life, why, it would beimmoral for me to perform any act that was a sacrifice. Any sacrificethat makes me lose one crawl or squirm is foolish,—and not only foolish,for it is a wrong against myself and a wicked thing. I must not lose onecrawl or squirm if I am to get the most out of the ferment. Nor will theeternal movelessness that is coming to me be made easier or harder by thesacrifices or selfishnesses of the time when I was yeasty and acrawl.”

“Then you are an individualist, a materialist, and, logically, ahedonist.”

“Big words,” he smiled. “But what is a hedonist?”

He nodded agreement when I had given the definition. “And you are also,”I continued, “a man one could not trust in the least thing where it waspossible for a selfish interest to intervene?”

“Now you’re beginning to understand,” he said, brightening.

“You are a man utterly without what the world calls morals?”

“That’s it.”

“A man of whom to be always afraid—”

“That’s the way to put it.”

“As one is afraid of a snake, or a tiger, or a shark?”

“Now you know me,” he said. “And you know me as I am generally known.Other men call me ‘Wolf.’”

“You are a sort of monster,” I added audaciously, “a Caliban who haspondered Setebos, and who acts as you act, in idle moments, by whim andfancy.”

His brow clouded at the allusion. He did not understand, and I quicklylearned that he did not know the poem.

“I’m just reading Browning,” he confessed, “and it’s pretty tough. Ihaven’t got very far along, and as it is I’ve about lost my bearings.”

Not to be tiresome, I shall say that I fetched the book from hisstate-room and read “Caliban” aloud. He was delighted. It was aprimitive mode of reasoning and of looking at things that he understoodthoroughly. He interrupted again and again with comment and criticism.When I finished, he had me read it over a second time, and a third. Wefell into discussion—philosophy, science, evolution, religion. Hebetrayed the inaccuracies of the self-read man, and, it must be granted,the sureness and directness of the primitive mind. The very simplicityof his reasoning was its strength, and his materialism was far morecompelling than the subtly complex materialism of Charley Furuseth. Notthat I—a confirmed and, as Furuseth phrased it, a temperamentalidealist—was to be compelled; but that Wolf Larsen stormed the laststrongholds of my faith with a vigour that received respect, while notaccorded conviction.

Time passed. Supper was at hand and the table not laid. I becamerestless and anxious, and when Thomas Mugridge glared down thecompanion-way, sick and angry of countenance, I prepared to go about myduties. But Wolf Larsen cried out to him:

“Cooky, you’ve got to hustle to-night. I’m busy with Hump, and you’ll dothe best you can without him.”

And again the unprecedented was established. That night I sat at tablewith the captain and the hunters, while Thomas Mugridge waited on us andwashed the dishes afterward—a whim, a Caliban-mood of Wolf Larsen’s, andone I foresaw would bring me trouble. In the meantime we talked andtalked, much to the disgust of the hunters, who could not understand aword.