but for delivery at sea to the warships of some foreign nation.
Devoutly Michael J. hoped it wasn't for the British fleet, since in
such a contingency he would be cruelly torn between his love and duty.
Consequently he resolved that, should the choice of alternatives be
forced upon him, he would steer a middle course and resign his
command.

On the other hand, Mike Murphy knew Matt Peasley and Cappy Ricks to be
intensely pro-Ally in their sympathies, despite the President's
proclamation of neutrality and the polite requests of the
motion-picture houses for their audiences to remain perfectly quiet
while Field-Marshal von Hindenburg, Sir John French and General Joffre
came on the screen and bowed. Under the circumstances, therefore,
Murphy found it very difficult to suspect his owners of conspiring to
deliver a cargo of coal to the German fleet at sea. No, indeed! Matt
Peasley and Cappy Ricks were too intensely American for that; indeed,
Cappy was always saying he hoped to see an American mercantile marine
established before he should be gathered to the bosom of Abraham.

From whatever angle the doughty skipper viewed it, therefore, the
tangle became more and more incomprehensible. Cappy and Matt knew full
well the rules of the game as promulgated by their Uncle Samuel, and
the dire penalties for infraction. However, granted that they knew
they could scheme successfully to evade punishment at the hands of
their own government, Mike Murphy knew full well that no man could
guarantee immunity from the right of a belligerent warship to visit
and search, or from confiscation or months of demurrage in a prize
court in the event that his ship's papers and the course the vessel
was travelling failed to justify her presence in that particular
longitude and latitude. And with the huge profits to be made in