There was a sudden scuffle, then out from the corner of the deck-house danced Kipping with both hands pressed over his jaw.
"You bloody scoundrel!" he snarled, meek no longer. "You wait—I'll get you. I'll—" Seeing me sitting there with my bit of rope, he stopped short; then, with a sneer, he walked away.
Amazed at the sudden departure of his tormentor, Bill Hayden stuck his own head round the corner and in turn discovered me in my unintentional hiding-place.
Bill, however, instead of departing in chagrin, joined me with a puzzled expression on his kind, stupid face.
"I don't understand that Kipping," he said sadly. "I've tried to use him right. I've done everything I can to help him out and I'm sure I don't want to quarrel with him, yet for all he goes around as meek as a cat that's been in the cream, he's always pecking at me and pestering me, till just now I was fair drove to give him a smart larrup."
Why, indeed, should Kipping or any one else molest good, dull old Bill
Hayden?
"I'm a family man, I am," Bill continued, "with a little girl at home. I ain't a-bothering no one. I'm sure all I want is to be left alone."
For a time we sat in silence, watching the succession of blue waves through which the Island Princess cut her swift and almost silent passage. A man must have been a cowardly bully to annoy harmless old Bill. Yet even then, young though I was, I realized that sometimes there is no more dangerous man than a coward and a bully, "He's great friends with the second mate," Bill remarked at last. "And the second mate has got no use at all for Mr. Thomas because he thought he was going to get Mr. Thomas's berth and didn't; and for the same reason he don't like the captain. Well, I'm glad he's only second mate. He ain't got his hands out of the tar-bucket yet, my boy."
"How do you know he expected to get the mate's berth?" I asked.
"It's common talk, my boy. The supercargo's the only man aft he's got any manner of use for, and cook says the steward says Mr. Hamlin ain't got no manner of use for him. There you are."