The old man had to intervene again. He accomplished it by backing up his tuggings with profanity. He cast aspersions on our ancestry, and threatened us with the psycho-lash.
I'm hot-tempered, but I cool off quickly. The instant I realized I was making it tough for the old man I struggled to my feet, and held out my hand.
"Any time you're ready, Murphy," I said.
The Irishman rose groggily, shaking his head to clear it. He stood for a minute staring incredulously at my extended palm, his eyebrows twitching. Then his own hand went out and locked with mine.
"I guess I was a bit hasty, lad," he said.
Ten minutes later Sylvia was placing cool pads on my face, one on each cheek, and shaking her head over my blackened eye. "I'm not really sorry for you, Dave," she said. "You apparently enjoy lashing out with your fists. You just used that frog as an excuse."
Perhaps I should have mentioned sooner that there was a woman on board. A slim and attractive girl with coppery hair named Sylvia Varner was visiting us for five days consecutively. But she had come out on the crew-shift cruiser Aquila which was berthed right alongside of us on the semi-molten crust.
Women are out of place on Mercury run ships, and if I were taking fictional liberties with this record I'd leave her out. But facts are facts, and the feminine zig-zag had a lot to do with the way the frog brought us all to the brink of despair. Without her it would have been less though, but less exciting, too, and, of course, for romantic reasons I was glad she had come. She happened to be Ellison's niece, and my fiancee, and had a kid brother working on the metallurgical staff.
"But it isn't a frog," I said, irritably. "It's a Mercurian animal. And I don't blame Murphy for sailing into me."