“Some’ow the fact that we’ve sailed on the ‘Jane Gladys’ doesn’t seem to be a recommendation,” mentioned Mr. Clark, regretfully.
“Contrariwise!” said Mr. Tridge, tersely.
“She might be bought up and repaired and repainted and refitted,” ventured Captain Butt, but with no great hope.
“’Er new owners would never keep us on, though,” frankly opined Mr. Tridge. “They’ll ’ave ’eard too much about us.”
“Ho, hindeed?” said Horace, loftily. “Well, in that case, I don’t know as I’m anxious to sail under folks what listen to gossip.”
“Luckily, we’ve got a full week before we leaves ’ere again,” remarked the skipper. “That’ll give you time to keep your ears open, and, if any of you finds anything to suit you meantime, I shan’t stand in the way of you leaving when you want to. And it’ll be about two months before the ‘Jane Gladys’ is put up for auction, so you’ll ’ave plenty of time to go on looking round.”
“And so we shall after them two months,” dismally foretold Mr. Samuel Clark. “When first I come on this boat, twenty-seven years ago,” he told the skipper, reproachfully, “I was given to understand it was a permanent job. If I’d known—”
“Well, there it is,” said Captain Dutt, again rather lamely, “and it can’t be helped.”
He waited a little while, uncomfortably conscious of the unhappy visages of his crew. Then, with symptoms of commendable emotion, he scuttled to his cabin. The mate, hitherto silent, addressed to the crew a few words of sympathy with himself, and followed his superior.
The four sailormen of the “Jane Gladys,” bleakly regarding each other, expressed their feelings in this crisis in a sort of forceful, rumbling fugue. This done, they sulkily retired to their bunks, to lie down and meditate over the impending upheaval in their affairs.