“Yes, he does sometimes; I’m afraid that he does not like me.”
“You worry him,” I thought to myself, “by hanging about him so, and talking to Miss Denning when he wants her to read to him.”
“Yes?” said Mr Preddle; “what were you thinking?”
“Oh, about what you said. He is irritable, you know, from bad health.”
“Yes,” he said, quite in a whisper, “irritable from bad health, poor fellow.”
He stood with the little landing-net in his hand, gazing down into the trough nearest to us as if watching the little trout; but his thoughts were, I dare say, of something else, and I did not like to disturb him, but stood giving a side look now and then at him, but for the most part watching his charge, and thinking how thoroughly man had imitated the shape of a fish in making a ship, even to the tail to steer it with. Then all at once I looked up, for there were voices outside, and I knew it was Jarette the Frenchman saying something very earnestly to Walters.
I did not hear what either of them said, for they spoke in a very low tone, and in French. But I caught just the last words which were uttered by Jarette, and they were these—
“Mais prenez-garde, mon ami. Prenez-garde.”
Then they had passed on, and all was silent again, with Mr Preddle still watching the fish.
“‘But take care, my friend, take care.’ That’s what he said,” I thought to myself; “I know French enough for that. Take care of what? And why does he call Walters ‘my friend’? He’s only a common sailor, and a midshipman even in a merchantman oughtn’t to be friends in that way with the men.”