“Not loaded right?” he puffed at last when he got his breath. “Well, well, what a pity! That yarn, I guess, comes from some of the navigators in the smoking-room. They generally run the ship. Here, you little rascal, turn out your toes and dance a jig for me. No—no—not that way—this way-r-out with them! Here, let me show you. One—two—off we go. Now the pigeon wing and the double twist and the rat-tat-tat, rat-tat-tat—that's the way, my lad!”
He had the boy's hands now, the child shouting with laughter, the overjoyed mother clapping her hands as the big burly Captain with his face twice as red from the exercise, danced back and forth across the deck, the passengers forming a ring about them.
“There!” sputtered the Captain, all out of breath from the exercise, as he dropped the child back into the widow's arms. “Now all of you come down to luncheon. The weather is getting better every minute. The glass is rising and we are going to have a fine night.”
Carhart, who had watched the whole performance with an ill-concealed sneer on his face, muttered to the man next him:
“What did I tell you? He's a pretty kind of a Captain, ain't he? He's mashed on the widow just as I told you. Smoking-room yarn, is it? I bet I could pick out half a dozen men right in them chairs who could run the ship as well as he does. Maybe we'll have to take charge, after all—don't you think so, Mr. Bonner?”
The Texan smiled grimly: “I'll let you do the picking, Mr. Carhart—” and with his hand on the Actor's arm, the two went below.
A counter-current now swept through the ship. If anything was really the matter the Captain would not be dancing jigs, nor would he leave the bridge for his meals. This, like all other counter-currents—wave or otherwise—tossed up a bobble of dispute when the two clashed. There was no doubt about it: Carhart had been “talking through his hat”—“shooting off his mouth”—the man was “a gas bag,” etc., etc. When appeal for confirmation was made to the Texan and the Actor, who now seemed inseparable, neither made reply. They evidently did not care to be mixed up in what Bonner characterized with a grim smile as “more hot air.”
All through the meal the Captain kept up his good-natured mood; chatting with the widow who sat on his right, the baby in her lap; making a pig of a lemon and some tooth-picks for the boy, who had crawled up into his arms; exchanging nods and smiles down the length of the table with several new arrivals, or congratulating those nearest to him on their recovery after the storm, ending by carrying both boy and baby to the upper deck—so that he might “not forget how to handle” his own when he got back, he laughed in explanation.