T. C. was one of those readers who become absolutely dead to surroundings. Curled there with her nose in “Traffics and Discoveries,” she looked as if you might have knicked her without waking her, and this fact somehow cast a pall over the conversation of Hank and Bud, who, after a few minutes, found their conversation beginning to dry up.
“Lord,” said Hank, “I wonder how long this beastly calm’s going to hold.”
“Don’t know,” said George.
Then Candon came on deck. He had no chair. He stood with his back to the port rail cutting up some tobacco and filling a pipe.
“I wonder how long this beastly calm is going to hold,” said George.
“Lord knows,” said Candon.
Tommie chuckled. Something in the book had tickled her, she turned over a page rapidly and plunged deeper into oblivion like a puffin after smelts.
“What’s the current taking us?” asked George.
“Maybe three knots,” said Hank. “There’s no saying.” He yawned, then, as though the idea had just struck him, “Say—what’s wrong with trying the engine?”