The pump-man seemed to be listening to something. "Hear 'em?" he asked.
The passenger cocked up his ears, and heard them—several voices from the depths of one of the tanks.
"It's No. 11," explained the pump-man, and hurried away. The passenger saw him disappear into a hatchway. Almost immediately the voices ceased and shortly four deck-hands hurriedly emerged. Kieran followed. "Beat it!" he ordered, and they somewhat sheepishly went forward.
Kieran came aft. "What was the trouble?" asked the passenger.
"That bunch of bone-heads,"—Kieran was talking. He was also pinching the crust from the wick of a candle he held—"they sneaked down there to have a little game. And brought this candle with them—for light. Three weeks ago, up to the dock in Bayonne, a bunch lit a candle to look for something in the corner of an oil ship's tank, and the coroner couldn't tell the buttons of one from the other. Gas, yes. Another half minute and these chaps would've got the surprise of their lives. But maybe I'd better go for'ard and give [pg 309] 'em a few chemical explanations, or some day, meaning no harm, they'll be blowing out the side of the ship. So long."
III
The pump-man roomed with Jenkins, the third officer, in the superstructure, amidships. The passenger sometimes, as on this night, looked in there.
Jenkins was an Englishman, and of him they told the story that when he first came to the country half the space in his yellow tin trunk was taken up with cakes of Pears' soap. Somebody had told him that he couldn't buy any in the United States. He still had some of his original load of soap, and now hauled the tin trunk out from under his bunk, took out a cake and made a lather, with which he slicked down his thin, sandy hair, smoothing it, the while he gossiped cheerfully with Kieran and the passenger, on each side of the middle parting until it made a straight line between the bottom of his ears to his eyebrows. His ears were stuck high up on the side of his head—a sign of high intelligence, he used to say.
Jenkins had to go on watch at midnight, and so now he was getting ready to turn in. The third officer had a minute way of telling his little experiences, [pg 310] to which Kieran always listened patiently. If Kieran had not, Jenkins would have had no audience at all, for the second officer, a Norwegian, and the first officer, a Vermont Yankee, had no use for any Englishman whatever; and besides that he was only the third officer.
The pump-man had sympathy for Jenkins, but not so much that he would sit and listen while Jenkins talked himself to sleep; so, once he saw Jenkins into his bunk, Kieran used to fly for the open deck.