“But don't tell her that you will not marry us—not just now. Wait till she is calmer.”
“Oh, I sha'n't tell her! Don't worry!” said Captain Downs, with a grim set to his mouth. “All she, or you, gets out of me can be put in a flea's eye.”
He disappeared down the steps, and Bradish followed. A mate had come aft, obeying the master's hand-flourish, and he took up the watch. In a little while Mayo was relieved. He went forward, conscious that he was a bit irritated and disappointed because he had not seen the heroine of this love adventure, and wondering just a bit at his interest in that young lady.
An hour later Mayo, coiling down lines in the alley outside the engine-room, overheard a bulletin delivered by the one-eyed cook to the engineer.
The cook had trotted forward, his sound eye bulging out and thus mutely expressing much astonishment. “There's a dame aft. I've been making tea and toast for her.”
“Well, you act as if it was the first woman you'd ever seen. What's the special excitement about a skirt going along as passenger?”
“She wa'n't expected to be aboard. I heard the old man talking with her. The flash gent that's passenger has rung her in somehow. I didn't get all the drift be-cause the old man only sort of purred while I was in hearing distance. But I caught enough to know that it ain't according to schedule.”
“Good looker?” The engineer was showing a bit of interest.
“She sure is!” declared the cook, demonstrating that one eye is as handy, sometimes, as two. “Peaches and cream, molasses-candy hair, hands as white as pastry flour. Looks good enough to eat.”
“Nobody would ever guess you are a cook, hearing you describe a girl,” sneered the engineer.