“Bah!” snapped the doctor, and he turned on his heel and walked away.
“Turned out of his bunk wrong side up’ards, sir?” asked the man, with a smile.
“Pah!” ejaculated Rodd, and he stamped off in the other direction.
“Old ’un’s been giving it to him, I suppose,” said Joe to himself. “Oh, I know; he’d been upsetting that bottle of fish soup as the skipper fetched me down to swab up last night—that as went all over the skipper’s chart. Pore young chap! I’ll go and smooth him down.”
“What do you want?” cried Rodd angrily.
“Oh, nothing, sir. I only wanted to say I’m sorry I put your uncle out about the island. I’m a bit deaf in one ear since I got hurt over that fight, and I mis-underconstumbled him. He said, ‘There she is,’ and I thought he was talking about Bony’s island, and he meant the brig.”
“Well, suppose he did? There she is.”
“Nay, sir; you take another look. That’s a three-master, sir. Don’t you see?”
“Oh yes, I see now, Joe,” said Rodd, who was rather ashamed of his petulance to the man. “She was end on to us, and I didn’t see the mizzen. Why, she’s in full sail!”
“Yes, sir, a regular crowd of canvas, topgallants and stunsles all up, and if I haven’t forgotten all about a man-of-war, that’s what she is, as we used to say, by the cut of her jib, which is a very sensible remark, sir, as from here her jib’s quite out of sight.”