“Course I will! We sail about eleven this morning. I'm loaded and cleared out. But I should like you to have a change o' clothes. Can't bear to see ye in them black things. It makes me feel as if I was talkin' to a priest.”
“I should like nothing better,” replied Christian, as he rose and contemplated his own person reflectively.
“Come into my state-room then. I've got a few things of my own, and a bit of a slop-chest: jerseys and things as I sell to the men.”
The Captain's wardrobe was of a marine character and somewhat rough in texture. He had, however, a coat and waistcoat of thick blue pilot-cloth which fitted Christian remarkably well, but the continuations thereof were so absurdly out of keeping with the young fellow's long limbs as to precipitate the skipper on to the verge of apoplexy. When he recovered, and his pipe was re-lighted, he left the cabin and went forward to borrow a pair of the required articles from Tom Slake, an ordinary seaman of tall and slim proportions. In a short time Christian Vellacott bore the outward semblance of a very fair specimen of the British tar, except that his cheeks were bleached and sunken, which discrepancy was promptly commented upon by the blunt old sailor.
Secrecy was absolutely necessary, so Tom, of the long legs, was the only person to whom Christian's presence was made known; and he it was who (in view of a possible berth as steward later on) was entrusted with the simple culinary duties of the vessel.
Breakfast, as served up by Tom, was of a noble simplicity. A long shiny loaf of yesterday's bread, some butter in a saucer—which vessel was deemed entirely superfluous in connection with cups—brown sugar in an old mustard-tin, with portions of yellow paper adhering to it, and solid slices of bacon brought from the galley in their native frying-pan. Such slight drawbacks, however, as there might have been in the matter of table-ware disappeared before the sense of kindly hospitality with which Captain Lebrun poured the tea into a cracked cup and a borrowed pannikin, dropping in the sugar with careful judgment from his brown fingers. Such defects as there might have lurked in the culinary art as carried on in the galley vanished before the friendly solicitude with which Tom tilted the frying-pan to pour into Christian's plate a bright flow of bacon-fat cunningly mingled with cinders.
When the meal had been duly despatched Captain Lebrun produced his pipe and proceeded to fill it, after having extracted from its inward parts the usual high-toned squeak.
Christian leant back against the bulkhead with his hands buried deeply in Tom's borrowed pockets. He felt much more at home in pilot cloth than in cashmere.
“There is one more thing I should like to borrow,” he said.
“Ay?” repeated the captain interrogatively, as he searched in his waistcoat-pocket for a match.