“What’s his name?” asked Jim.
“Name!” cried Bowers. “How the blazes do you think I know what his name is?—Hasn’t got one—” Then as an afterthought, “Dick’s his name, ain’t it, bo? Dick—hey! Dick, ain’t that your name, hey?”
“Dick,” repeated the laughing child, splashing the water. “Dick! Dick!”
“And Dick you’ll be,” said Bowers, with a last squeeze of the sponge, baptismal in its significance, though such a thought was far from the mind of the baptiser. “Now, hold me the tow’l—and there you are.”
He finished off the drying and released the child, who at once made for Jim, of all people in the world, clasped him round the legs with his chubby little arms, and looked up in his face. Innocence adoring the biggest blackguard that ever footed Long Wharf.
Then Stanistreet appeared from the saloon hatch and the fo’c’sle crowd melted, all but Jim.
“Bowers!” cried Stanistreet.
“Comin’, sir,” replied the bo’sun. He shoved the bath away, shot the sponge into the locker, and came forward.
“So Dick’s your name, is it?” said Jim, unclasping the tiny hands and lifting the “kid” in his arms. “And what’s your other name? Tell’s your other name, or up ye go over the rail, up ye go over the rail!” He danced the child in his arms, making pretence to throw it overboard. “Em,” cried Dick, the warm arms of Jim maybe waking in his misty mind the name of Emmeline, who had danced him so often. “Em—Em.”
“Here, drop the child,” said Bowers, coming forward again. “What are you foolin’ like that with him for? Sick you’ll make him before he’s had his breakfast.—What’s he sayin’?”