“All right. I'll go along, too, and help you make it short.”
As they walked along Captain Wass inspected his companion critically.
“High living aboard Marston's yacht make you dyspeptic, son? You look as if your vittles hadn't been agreeing with you.”
“My health is all right, sir.”
“Heard you had trouble with Marston,” proceeded the old skipper, with brutal frankness. “Anybody who has trouble with that damnation pirate comes well recommended to me. He is trying to steal every steamboat line on this coast. Thank Gawd, he can never get his claws on the old Vose line. Some great doings in the steamboat business are ahead, Mayo. Reckon it's a good line to be in if you like fight and want to make your bigness.”
Mayo walked on in silence. He was troubled by this added information that news of his affair with Marston had gained such wide currency. However, he was glad that this new opportunity offered him a chance to hide himself in the isolation of a freighter's pilot-house.
Captain Candage received the news with meek resignation. “I knowed it would have to come,” he said. “Couldn't expect much else. Howsomever, it ain't comforting.”
“Can't keep a good boy like this pawing around in fish gurry,” stated Captain Wass.
“I know it, and I wish him well and all the best!”
Their leave-taking, presided over by the peremptory master of the Nequasset, was short.