“Are you going as a passenger?” queried Ruth absently.
McKenzie reddened slightly. “No! I’m shipping before the mast if I can get a chance,” he answered calmly.
Moodey’s eyebrows went up. “Oh!” He pronounced it “Ow!” “I see! You’re a sailoh then I take it?”
“I’m a fisherman,” said Donald bluntly. Judson on the sofa with Helena was listening intently while carrying on a tête-à-tête with his fair companion.
“Oh, really!” The eyebrows went up still further and McKenzie thought Mr. Moodey was about to hold his nose. His manicured fingers did lift towards his face, but he changed his mind and pulled a silk handkerchief out of his sleeve and carefully smoothed his hair back from his forehead. “You ketch cods and kippahs and all that sort of thing, do you? Out on the Banks, eh? It must be an awfully jolly life pulling nets all day long—makes one think of the Apostles, eh, what?—but it’s such a messy, smelly one, I should imagine, eh?”
“We don’t pull nets,” said Donald a mite aggressively. “We use hooks and lines.”
“Quite so! Quite so!” returned Moodey unabashed. “I forgot ... cods. Good money in cods, McKenzie?” There was a tone in his voice that Donald did not like, nor Judson either. The latter had been listening to the conversation and he wheeled around from Helena and observed in a steely significant voice, “You sh’d know that, Moodey. Your old gran’pop made all his little whack on the fishflakes. Many a cod the ol’ man split, salted an’ turned on the flakes himself, and a terror to bargain was the same Salt Hake Moodey. Useter cut th’ whiskers off the hakes an’ try an’ pass ’em off as cod-fish—” Both Moodey and Ruth were fidgetting, and Helena, sensing something, rose and beckoned to Donald. “Come on, Don! Let’s have some music.”
They spent some time at the piano playing and singing together. Mr. Moodey exhibited some surprise at McKenzie’s talents at first, but latterly slid back in his chair with an air of boredom. They were singing old songs and Walter did not care much for them, though Ruth was listening with appreciation, and several times when he started to speak, she held up her hand for silence.
“I say, old chap,” he said to Donald at the conclusion of a piece, “cawn’t you give us something with a little life to it? That old fire-side and heart-throb stuff is awfully depressing, don’t y’ know? Give us some musical comedy or light opera stuff—but, I don’t suppose you know anything in that line?” The slight, and possibly unintentional, sarcastic note in his voice when he spoke the last words annoyed Donald. He would show this Halifax fop that a fisherman wasn’t necessarily a creature without culture or education, and when it came down to playing and singing snatches from musical comedies or operas—Huh! he had possibly seen and heard more of them in Glasgow than Moodey ever knew existed.