"Again the cattleships forged level."
"Oho!" shouted Cockney. "'Ere we are! Two stinks comin' 'ome!"
Michael leant on the rail and gazed at the rival ship with one eye, raised the shade slightly from the other and looked, to see if it improved.
"Iberian!" he said. "Iberian!" reading her name upon the bows.
"Hiberian," said Cockney.
"No, you're thinking of the Hibernian," replied Michael, still holding the shade up and peering, like a man testing new eye-glasses.
Cockney humped his shoulders and shot his face forward, then noticed Michael lifting that lid over his eye, and his mouth gave a twist of something like shame, and he turned away.
"It's the S dropped off," said the Inquisitive One. "I came over on her once—Siberian."
"Nothing of the kind!" said somebody else.
"Oh, gee!" said Mike. "You fellers are always scrapping."