"Everything," he answered. "I thought yesterday I pointed out to you a hole in the after awning."
"You did, sir, and it has been repaired. I put the sail-maker on to it at once."
He rose from his chair with a look of triumph on his face.
"Kindly step aft with me," he said, "and let us examine it for ourselves."
Feeling confident that what I had said was correct, I gladly accompanied him, but to my horror, when we reached the place in question, there was the rent gaping at us without a stitch in it.
"I regret exceedingly that you should consider it necessary to cover your negligence by telling me what is not true," he said in a voice so loud that some of the second-class passengers could hear it.
This was more than I could swallow.
"I'll not be called a liar by you, Captain Harveston, or by any man living," I retorted, feeling that I would have given something to have been able to have knocked him down. "If you will send for the sail-maker, he will inform you that I gave him orders to do it this morning. It is no fault of mine that he has neglected his duty."
"It is the fault of no one else, sir," returned the captain. "If you kept the men up to their work, this would not have been left undone. I shall be careful to enter this occurrence in the log-book."
So saying he stalked majestically away, and I went in search of the sail-maker. The man, it appeared, had intended doing the work, but had been called away to something else, and had forgotten it. After that, I returned to my own cabin, and sat down to think the matter over. There could be no sort of doubt that I was in an exceedingly unenviable position. I could quite see that if Harveston reported me, the Board would be likely to believe his version of the story, and even if they did not consider me quite as negligent as he was endeavouring to make me, they would probably argue that I was not all I might be, on the basis that there can be no smoke without fire. Whatever else might be said, a reputation for slovenliness and untruthfulness would be scarcely likely to help me in my career. From that day forward matters went from bad to worse. It seemed impossible for me to do right, however hard I might try. What was more annoying, I began to feel that, not content with disliking me himself, the captain was endeavouring to set the passengers against me also.