“One man’s food another man’s poison,” the mate remarked. “That holds true beyond mere victuals. I suppose it didn’t occur to you that it was a dam’ poor way for a good man to be knocked out.”
Mr. Powell admitted openly that he had not thought of that. He was ready to admit that it was very reprehensible of him. But Franklin had no intention apparently to moralize. He did not fall silent either. His further remarks were to the effect that there had been a time when Captain Anthony would have showed more than enough concern for the least thing happening to one of his officers. Yes, there had been a time!
“And mind,” he went on, laying down suddenly a half-consumed piece of bread and butter and raising his voice, “poor Mathews was the second man the longest on board. I was the first. He joined a month later—about the same time as the steward by a few days. The bo’sun and the carpenter came the voyage after. Steady men. Still here. No good man need ever have thought of leaving the Ferndale unless he were a fool. Some good men are fools. Don’t know when they are well off. I mean the best of good men; men that you would do anything for. They go on for years, then all of a sudden—”
Our young friend listened to the mate with a queer sense of discomfort growing on him. For it was as though Mr. Franklin were thinking aloud, and putting him into the delicate position of an unwilling eavesdropper. But there was in the mess-room another listener. It was the steward, who had come in carrying a tin coffee-pot with a long handle, and stood quietly by: a man with a middle-aged, sallow face, long features, heavy eyelids, a soldierly grey moustache. His body encased in a short black jacket with narrow sleeves, his long legs in very tight trousers, made up an agile, youthful, slender figure. He moved forward suddenly, and interrupted the mate’s monologue.
“More coffee, Mr. Franklin? Nice fresh lot. Piping hot. I am going to give breakfast to the saloon directly, and the cook is raking his fire out. Now’s your chance.”
The mate who, on account of his peculiar build, could not turn his head freely, twisted his thick trunk slightly, and ran his black eyes in the corners towards the steward.
“And is the precious pair of them out?” he growled.
The steward, pouring out the coffee into the mate’s cup, muttered moodily but distinctly: “The lady wasn’t when I was laying the table.”
Powell’s ears were fine enough to detect something hostile in this reference to the captain’s wife. For of what other person could they be speaking? The steward added with a gloomy sort of fairness: “But she will be before I bring the dishes in. She never gives that sort of trouble. That she doesn’t.”
“No. Not in that way,” Mr. Franklin agreed, and then both he and the steward, after glancing at Powell—the stranger to the ship—said nothing more.