I named the several problems in navigation, one or more of which I had been accustomed to practise daily and nightly under my late skipper; and the lady was graciously pleased to express her cordial approval of my knowledge.
“Yes,” she said; “if you can do all those things I guess you are pretty good—quite as good, in fact, as Neil Kennedy, my chief officer, and he is no slouch as a navigator. Now, Mr Leigh, I have not been putting you through your facings just out of sheer feminine curiosity; I’ve been doing it with a purpose. I am Mrs Cornelia Vansittart, wife of Julius Vansittart of New York, engineer, the inventor of the Vansittart gasoline engine. I am passionately fond of yachting, so my husband made me a present of the Stella Maris, and consented to my making a voyage in her round the world. She is a good ship, and I have a good crew; but I have only two mates, and Kennedy says that in a ship of this size, and on such a cruise as we are contemplating, I ought to have a third. At first I didn’t propose to do anything of the kind, for I don’t like being told by anybody what I ought to do, or to have; but somehow, when I saw you lost in admiration of my ship, I sort of took a fancy to you. I like the look of you, and thought that if I must have a third mate, I’d like one something like you; so I invited you to come aboard, that I might have a chance to talk to you and find out if you came up to sample. I mean to have a good time this trip, and I mean that my officers and crew shall have a good time too, if it rests with me. I’ve taken a whole lot of trouble to pick the right sort of men to man this ship, and I’ve come to the conclusion that you are the right sort. So if you care to accept the position I am ready to ship you as third mate of the Stella Maris. The pay is thirty per, with all found, uniforms included. Now, what do you say?”
I had a sufficient knowledge of American colloquialisms to be aware that the expression “thirty per” meant thirty dollars—or six pounds—per month, which was considerably better than I had hoped for, or was at all likely to get elsewhere. I liked the ship, and I was immensely taken with my prospective new skipper; therefore I at once unhesitatingly and gratefully accepted the offer.
I was then gracefully dismissed, with instructions to be prepared to “sign on” at eleven o’clock on the morrow, and to have my dunnage aboard not later than noon, since the yacht would haul out of dock and proceed down the river early in the afternoon.
I had taken my leave of Mrs Vansittart, and was already out on deck on my way to the gangway, when the lady rushed after me and called upon me to stop, exclaiming:
“Sakes alive! what’s come over me? I declare to goodness I clean forgot that you haven’t yet been measured for your uniforms. Colson,”—to one of the seamen who were engaged in striking packing cases down below—“pass the word for Mr Grimwood, please. Mr Grimwood,” she explained, “is the purser. I’ll turn you over to him, and he will take you to the tailor, who will soon rig you out.”
A shout down the after hatchway resulted in Mr Grimwood’s prompt appearance on deck, and to him I was in due form introduced.
“Mr Grimwood,” said Mrs Vansittart, “this is Mr Walter Leigh—L-e-i-g-h, you know—who will sign on at eleven o’clock to-morrow morning as third mate of this ship. I want you to take him below to Snip, who will measure him for his uniforms. Please tell Snip to arrange things so that Mr Leigh’s working uniform shall be ready for him by noon. When you have done that, have the goodness to assign a cabin to Mr Leigh; and at the same time I’d like you to introduce him to the rest of the wardroom officers. You’ll see to that? Thank you! Once more, good afternoon, Mr Leigh!”
As the lady turned and left us, Grimwood chuckled.
“So the skipper’s taken Kennedy’s advice, after all, to ship a third mate,” he remarked. “Guess he’s put one over Briscoe this time, anyway. Briscoe’s our ‘second’, you know, and he bet Kennedy that he couldn’t persuade Mrs Vansittart to ship a ‘third’. Kennedy’ll be a bit set up when he hears the news, because, between you and me, he doesn’t take overmuch stock in Briscoe, and has held all along that we ought to have a third mate to take his place if necessary. Oh, yes, Briscoe’s all right, so far as he goes; but he doesn’t go far enough. He’s not exactly the right sort of man for a ship of this kind, and I think that, for once in a way, Mrs Vansittart made a mistake when she picked him. But I guess you’d better not take too much notice of what I say; I don’t want to prejudice you against him.”