I did get in touch with one of the fellows who had been around a great deal with me and whom I trusted—for he had no special use for Anson C. Doughty.
Anson C. Doughty was out of doors once more, after spending a week of retirement in the company of a few busy little leeches, and, as to eyes and nose, he was not looking so very badly on the outside, but was evidently having a great amount of trouble with a volcano raging within, so my informant told me. Mr. Doughty was proclaiming that he proposed to catch me so that he could make an example for the sake of discipline in his crews in the future; but according to the program he had promulgated, he proposed to cut me up with a meatchopper before turning me over to the law. So I decided to keep under cover for an indefinite period.
Then I sent word to Captain Jodrey Vose and had him call on me in my castle, because I did not want him to think that he had wasted all his efforts when he had made me a diver.
However, the captain did seem to think so. He frankly said so.
“You’ll never get another job diving on the Atlantic coast,” he told me. “In the first place, you won’t dare to show up as a diver where Anson C. Doughty can grab you. In the next place, Anson C. Doughty has posted you with all the wrecking companies as being as dangerous as an Asiatic tiger with lighted kerosene on his tail. Now tell me what made you do it.”
I told him.
He looked at me with his eyes squizzled up and a frown on his forehead.
“I’m getting along in years and I’m probably losing my mind to some extent,” he said, “but I’ll be cussed if I believe I’ve got entire softening of the brain. It must be that I’m deaf and can’t understand—because I don’t get the least idea of why you did it to him. Tell it over.”
I told him again.
“Yes, I must have softening of the brain,” he grunted. “It’s all a riddle-come-ree to me!”