The skipper on the quarter—"
Usually it is only the drunks who come over the side of an oil-tanker singing, but this was no drunk. Drunks generally make use of all the aids to navigation when they board a ship. Above all, they do not ignore the gang-plank. But this lad wasn't going a hundred feet out of his way for any gang-plank. He hove his suit-case aboard, made a one-handed vault from dock to deck (and from stringpiece to rail was high as his shoulder), and when he landed on deck it was like a cat on his toes; and like a cat he was off and away, suit-case in hand, while those of the crew who had only seen him land were still wondering where he dropped from.
The big man plainly did not like the style of him [pg 183] at all. "Here you!" he bellowed, "who the hell are you?"
And the new-comer ripped out, "And who the hell are you that wants to know?"
"Who'm I? Who'm I? I'll show yer bloody well soon who I am."
"Well, show me."
"Show yer?"
"Yes, you big sausage, show me."
"Show yer? Show yer?" The big man peered around the ship. Surely it was a mirage.
At the very first whoop from the big man the pump-man had stopped dead, softly set down his suit-case, and waited. Now he stepped swiftly toward the big man. And to the passenger, looking and listening from the cabin mess-room, it looked like the finest kind of a battle; but just then the captain came up the gang-plank calling out, "Cast off those lines. And don't fall asleep over it, either." The deck force scattered to carry out his orders. The pump-man picked up his suit-case and went on to his quarters.