Six hours later I found him standing beside me at the rail in the waist of the ship and he appeared to be much improved. His fine skin glowed, but his hands looked as though they had been parboiled, with palms badly blistered. His trousers were dirty, dry, stiff, baggy and wrinkled. On the upper part of his body he wore nothing but a silk undershirt, and for his overworked feet he had pulled on a pair of sandals.
It is quite as impossible to disguise a real man as it is for a make-believe to pass himself off for a gentleman. Though unaware of how to go about it, he began taking my measure quite as coldly as I was his, after which he spoke his first connected words since we came together.
"It was mighty decent of you to help me out last night," he said, affably, holding a lighted cigarette contemplatively. Evidently his decision favored me.
"Every one has to make a beginning; you did very well to stay there during the whole of your first watch," said I, ignoring his thanks.
"Is it always as hot down there as it was last night?"
"Yes; sometimes more so. You see, last night we had a head wind."
"After my hands harden, and my stomach becomes accustomed to the food, I guess I'll be able to stand it all right." As he said this he looked at the palms of his hands ruefully. The backs were scarlet and glossy.
"You can if you want to," I replied. "You have the build. The food is coarse, but perhaps the best for that kind of work. Four hours is not very long to stand anything; you have not worked lately?"
"Lately?—never!" Then as though frightened at my reference to his past or even himself, he surprised me by asking, "How soon do we eat again?—I believe I could eat some of that horse-meat now."