“Huh. Eat more ’n they’ll work,” said Naboth.
“We’ll set them polishing brass,” says Mr. Browning.
“Won’t nuther. Don’t calc’late to have no boys tinkerin’ with my brass. ’Tain’t ’s if it was ord’nary brass. Uh-uh. Seems like I raised that brass from a pup. Hain’t nobody goin’ to tetch a polishin’ rag to it but me, not so long’s I’m able to waggle a fist.... You hear that?” he says, turning to us kind of fierce.
We said we heard, and he said we’d better hear and heed, and then we all got into the dinghy and Naboth started the engine, and we went skittering out toward the fleet. In about three minutes we came up under the stern of a big white boat with Albatross across her stern, and Naboth brought the dinghy up against her jacob’s ladder as soft as if it was an egg and he was afraid of breaking it.
“Make ’em git rubber soles on quick, so’s they won’t scratch up my deck,” says he.
I began to wonder who owned the yacht—whether it was Mr. Browning or Naboth, but I didn’t say anything, and neither did Catty. As Catty says, “You never make a fool of yourself by keeping your mouth shut and your eyes open.”
We climbed up to the deck, and then Mr. Browning took us down into the cabin. You’d be surprised how big that room was. Why it was almost as big as the parlor at home! Behind it was Mr. Browning’s stateroom, with two berths in it, and forward of the cabin was a bath room and the galley, and then came the engine room with the biggest six-cylinder engine I ever saw, and still ahead of that was the crew’s quarters. The boat was seventy feet long! And clean! And shining!
In the main cabin were four Pullman berths that folded into the wall, and Mr. Browning said Catty and I were to sleep there. He showed us how to take them down, and there they were, with the bed clothes all strapped on, and behind them some shelves for our clothes. He told us to fix things up and then to come on deck, for we would be getting under way in a few minutes.
We hustled and then went up on the bridge where we found Mr. Atkins talking to a young man who was introduced to us as Mr. Topper. He looked as if he was about twenty-six or seven, and was so long and thin and sad looking we didn’t know what to make of him. He hardly said a word, but just sat on the leather cushion looking off at the water and wiggling his fingers.
The crew, Mr. Topper said, was Naboth and the engineer, whose name was Tom, and the cook, whose name was Rameses III.