“Well, comfort is all I ask,” replied the Captain. “And you propose to put out this day week?”
“This day week. May I take it, now, that everything is settled?”
The Captain scratched his head for a moment, as if dislodging a last objection. Then he said:
“I’ll come.”
III
THE TOP SEAT AT THE TABLE
It was on a Tuesday morning that they started. Blood came on board at six, and found the majority of the crew already assembled under Harman. They had come on board the night before, and, to use his own expression, they were the roughest, toughest crowd he had ever seen collected on one deck.
He was just the man to handle them, and his first act was to boot a fellow off the bridge steps where he had taken his perch, pipe in mouth, and send him flying down the alleyway forward. Then, following him, he began to talk to the hands, sending them flying this way and that, some to clean brasswork and others to clear the raffle off the decks.
Down below, the boilers were beginning to rumble, and now appeared at the engine-room hatch a new figure, with the air of a Scotch terrier poking up its head to have a look round.