"Lord, sir," said Wylie, "how you startled me! You should not come upon a man at his work like that. We might have had an accident."
"What were you doing?" said Hazel, in a voice that quavered in spite of him.
"Repairing the ship. Found a crack or two in her inner skin. There, let me get a light, and I'll explain it to you, sir."
He groped his way out, and invited Mr. Hazel into his cabin. There he struck a light, and, with great civility, tendered an explanation. The ship, he said, had labored a good deal in the last gale, and he had discovered one or two flaws in her, which were of no immediate importance; but experience had taught him that in calm weather a ship ought to be kept tight. "As they say ashore, a stitch in time saves nine."
"But drilling holes in her is not the way," said Hazel sternly.
The mate laughed. "Why, sir," said he, "what other way is there? We cannot stop an irregular crack; we can frame nothing to fit it. The way is to get ready a plug measured a trifle larger than the aperture you are going to make; then drill a round hole and force in the plug. I know no other way than that; and I was a ship's carpenter for ten years before I was a mate."
This explanation, and the manner in which it was given, removed Mr. Hazel's apprehensions for the time being. "It was very alarming," said he; "but I suppose you know your business."
"Nobody better, sir," said Wylie. "Why, it is not one seaman in three that would trouble his head about a flaw in a ship's inner skin; but I'm a man that looks ahead. Will you have a glass of grog, sir, now you are here? I keep that under my eye, too; between ourselves, if the skipper had as much in his cabin as I have here, that might be worse for us all than a crack or two in the ship's inner skin."
Mr. Hazel declined to drink grog at that time in the morning, but wished him good-night and left him with a better opinion of him than he had ever had till then.
Wylie, when he was gone, drew a tumbler of neat spirits, drank half, and carried the rest back to his work.