How Nietzsche, with his eternal slogan of “Be hard! Be hard!” would have delighted in Mr. Pike!
And—oh!—Larry has had a tooth removed. For some days distressed with a jumping toothache, he came aft to the mate for relief. Mr. Pike refused to “monkey” with the “fangled” forceps in the medicine-chest. He used a tenpenny nail and a hammer in the good old way to which he was brought up. I vouch for this. I saw it done. One blow of the hammer and the tooth was out, while Larry was jumping around holding his jaw. It is a wonder it wasn’t fractured. But Mr. Pike avers he has removed hundreds of teeth by this method and never known a fractured jaw. Also, he avers he once sailed with a skipper who shaved every Sunday morning and never touched a razor, nor any cutting-edge, to his face. What he used, according to Mr. Pike, was a lighted candle and a damp towel. Another candidate for Nietzsche’s immortals who are hard!
As for Mr. Pike himself, he is the highest-spirited, best-conditioned man on board. The driving to which he subjected the Elsinore was meat and drink. He still rubs his hands and chuckles over the memory of it.
“Huh!” he said to me, in reference to the crew; “I gave ’em a taste of real old-fashioned sailing. They’ll never forget this hooker—at least them that don’t take a sack of coal overside before we reach port.”
“You mean you think we’ll have more sea-burials?” I inquired.
He turned squarely upon me, and squarely looked me in the eyes for the matter of five long seconds.
“Huh!” he replied, as he turned on his heel. “Hell ain’t begun to pop on this hooker.”
He still stands his mate’s watch, alternating with Mr. Mellaire, for he is firm in his conviction that there is no man for’ard fit to stand a second mate’s watch. Also, he has kept his old quarters. Perhaps it is out of delicacy for Margaret; for I have learned that it is the invariable custom for the mate to occupy the captain’s quarters when the latter dies. So Mr. Mellaire still eats by himself in the big after-room, as he has done since the loss of the carpenter, and bunks as before in the ’midship-house with Nancy.
CHAPTER XLII.
Mr. Mellaire was right. The men would not accept the driving when the Elsinore won to easier latitudes. Mr. Pike was right. Hell had not begun to pop. But it has popped now, and men are overboard without even the kindliness of a sack of coal at their feet. And yet the men, though ripe for it, did not precipitate the trouble. It was Mr. Mellaire. Or, rather, it was Ditman Olansen, the crank-eyed Norwegian. Perhaps it was Possum. At any rate, it was an accident, in which the several-named, including Possum, played their respective parts.