CHAPTER XII
During the voyage Captain Hampton saw but little of Jacob. Each day he went to the rope across the deck marking the division between the cabin and the steerage passengers, and the boy at once came running up to him. His report always was that he was getting on 'fust rate,' while each day his wonder at the amount of water increased.
'I would not have believed if I hadn't seen it that there could be so much water, Captain. I can't think where it all comes from. I heard some of them say it was tremendous deep—ten times as deep as that monument with the chap on the top of it in Trafalgar Square. Why, it must have rained for years and years to have got such a lot of water here as this. And it tastes bad. I had a wash in a bucket on deck this morning, and some of the water got in my mouth and it wur as nasty as could be—awful it wur. What can make it like that? Why the water in the Thames looks ten times as dirty, but it don't taste particular nasty for all that.'
'I will tell you about it some day, Jacob; it is too long to go into now. You remind me of it some evening, when we are at a lonely inn, with nothing to do. How do you get on at night?'
'I sleeps all right, sir; it is awful hot down there in them bunks, as they call 'em, one above another, just like a threepenny lodging-house where I used to sleep sometimes when I had had good luck. The first night or two was bad, there was no mistake about it. Most of 'em was awful ill, and made noises enough to frighten one. I could not think what made them so; it seemed to me as if someone must have put pison in the food, and I kept on expecting I was going to be took bad too; but a young chap tells me in the morning as most people is so the first day they goes to sea. If they wur to drink that water I could understand it, but it is all right what they gives us; and there are some of them as grumbles at the food, but I calls it just bang up. How much more of this water is there, sir?'
'About five more days' steaming, Jacob; it is a twelve-days' voyage from Liverpool to New York. I suppose some day they will get to do it in six, for they keep on building faster and faster steamers.'
'We are going wonderful fast now,' the boy said; 'a chap's cap as was sitting up in the end there blew off yesterday, and I ran to keep alongside with it, but it went a lot faster than I could run. I shall be glad when it is over, Captain; not as I ain't jolly, for I never was so jolly before, but I ain't doing nothing for you here, and I wants to be at work for you somehow. If they would let me wait on you, and put stuff on those white shoes, I should not so much mind.'
'I am very well waited on, Jacob, and if you were to try to wait on me at table while the vessel is rolling, you would be pretty sure to spill a plate of soup down my neck, or something of that sort. You amuse yourself in your own way, and don't worry about me; when there is anything to do I know you will do it.'
'I find you won't land till to-morrow, Jacob,' Captain Hampton said, as the vessel neared the wharf. 'Here is the name of the hotel where I shall be, in case by any chance I should miss you. They say you will probably come ashore at nine o'clock in the morning.'