Osterbridge Hawsey yawned. "Ah—there you are at last, Claggett," he said, "Battle all over? It still sounds rather ferocious, to me. But of course I am no expert. Heaven forbid!" Osterbridge ended, rolling his eyes toward the ceiling with his vague smile.
As Claggett Chew did not reply, Osterbridge looked back at him. The pirate's eyes were fixed on the parakeet, and his twitching fingers played with the steel-tipped whip. Claggett Chew's voice when it came was as sharp and as cold as a dagger in a dead man.
"I will have that bird, Osterbridge," he said.
Osterbridge's expression did not change but his eyes did, and they became almost as icy as Claggett Chew's.
"Oh no, you will not, Claggett," he said, and his high-pitched voice managed to be saturated with sarcasm. "This is the one thing that is keeping me from unutterable boredom, while you go into your interminable fight." He paused to give Claggett Chew a cutting look. "You know how I feel about piracy—too terribly degrading, though I can see it has its excitement and rewards. But it is unnecessary—"
Claggett Chew's eyes had a way of not blinking. They held a crocodile fixity. His tone, when he spoke again, did not vary. "I am not a trader, Osterbridge. Nor shall I bandy words with you on this subject. Give me that bird, or I shall take it from you!"
Osterbridge Hawsey rose with a slow grace from his chair, his hand curled gently but protectingly around his parakeet.
"Claggett," he said in his thin voice that cut now with the unexpected thinness of paper, "I am sorry to say such a thing to you, but your fever during the weeks just past has undoubtedly altered your brain. You are a madman, Claggett." Osterbridge Hawsey removed himself with deliberation from the proximity of the doorway, placing himself on the other side of the cabin table over which hung the swinging lamp. He did not turn his back to Claggett Chew nor take his eyes from him.
