"I believe you, matey. He's arranged everything. Supercargo! Well, to be sure! Never a supercargo as I ever knowed but wanted a man to look arter him, fetch and carry for him, so to say. How would I do, if I might make so bold?"
"Thanks," said Desmond, smiling as he surveyed the man's huge form. "But I think Captain Barker might object to that. You'd be of more use on deck, in spite of----"
He paused, but his glance at the iron hook had not escaped Bulger's observant eye.
"Spite of the curlin' tongs, you'd say. Bless you, spit 't out, I en't tender in my feelin's."
"Besides," added Desmond, "I shall probably make use of the boy who has been attending on me at the Goat and Compasses--a clever little black boy of Mr. Diggle's."
"Black boys be hanged! I never knowed a Sambo as was any use on board ship. They howls when they're sick, and they're allers sick, and never larns to tell a marlin-spike from a belayin' pin."
"But Scipio isn't one of that sort. He's never sick, Mr. Diggle says; they've been several voyages together, and Scipio knows a ship from stem to stern."
"Scipio, which his name is? Oncommon name, that."
There was a new tone in Bulger's voice, and he gave Desmond a keen and, as it seemed, a troubled look.
"Yes, it is strange," replied the boy, vaguely aware of the change of manner. "But Mr. Diggle has ways of his own."