“Nice sort o’ state of affairs,” observed Mr. Grover a little later to his factotum in the privacy of the den he called his office. “A lot of ungrateful swabs I’ve been keepin’—keepin’, mind you—for best part of two weeks, and they ups with their ‘Won’t sign ’ere’ ’n’ ‘Ain’t goin’ to sail there’ as if they was bloomin’ lords. Well, well! I’ll learn ’em. Don’t I hope Mr. Bucko Doyle’ll put it across ’em good and hard, that’s all!
“Why, in the old days in ’Frisco,” he continued dreamily, “you could ship a corp and no questions asked. And as for sailormen—well, you didn’t consult ’em. And quite right too. A lot they know about what’s good for ’em—a bunch of idle, extravagant swine! Warn’t it all for their good to get ’em shipped off to sea sharp afore they’d got time to get into trouble and go fillin’ up the jail, I ask you? And then you get a lot of meddlin’ psalm-singin’ idjits as don’t know the first thing about the class o’ men people like me ’ave got to deal with. Psha!”
And Mr. Grover set about filling a sea-chest with an assortment of old newspapers and empty bottles which would have struck his future shipmates, had they been there to see, as a curious outfit for a Cape Horn passage.
The next day bright and early he attended with his crowd at the shipping office, where, having duly heard the ship’s articles mumbled over, the party appended their signatures and marks thereto and became duly members of the crew of the “Bride of Abydos.” The morning was fine and sunny, and every one was in high good-humour. Captain Bascomb’s face was wreathed in smiles, and the wink to which Seattle Sam treated him when no one was looking elicited an even huger one in reply.
All the same, a joke is a joke, and Mr. Grover considered that it was carrying the joke a bit too far when the third mate, a big apprentice just out of his time, ordered him to tail on to the topsail halyards or he’d wonder what hit him. However, he complied with the order with as good a grace as he could muster, and even went the length of joining with some heartiness in the time-honoured strains of “Reuben Ranzo.” “After all,” he reflected, “may as well do the thing properly while you’re about it.”
Still, he wasn’t sorry when the time drew near for the little comedy to come to an end. Dropping, with a sigh of relief, the rope on which he had been hauling he walked quickly off towards the poop, rubbing his fat palms tenderly as he went. They had so long been strangers to anything resembling a job of work that they were already beginning to blister.
“Well, Skipper,” he cried gaily, “time to square our li’l’ account and say so long, I guess!”
The captain gave him rather a peculiar glance, and led the way in silence down into the cabin.
Seattle Sam hesitated a moment. Time was getting short. But a drink was a drink, after all, and it would have meant going back on the tradition of a lifetime to refuse one.
He had hardly entered the saloon before he became vaguely conscious of a certain lack of cordiality in the atmosphere. The pilot’s dirty glass was still on the table, but there was no other sign of liquid refreshment. He could not keep a note of uneasiness out of his voice.