Massy, contemptuous, and without raising his yellow, fleshy countenance, replied in the same pitch—
“Maybe. But if it had been you we would have been stuck fast in the mud.”
“Pardon me, Mr. Massy. I beg to deny it. Of course a shipowner may say what he jolly well pleases on his own deck. That’s all right; but I beg to . . .”
“Get out of my way!”
The other had a slight start, the impulse of suppressed indignation perhaps, but held his ground. Massy’s downward glance wandered right and left, as though the deck all round Sterne had been bestrewn with eggs that must not be broken, and he had looked irritably for places where he could set his feet in flight. In the end he too did not move, though there was plenty of room to pass on.
“I heard you say up there,” went on the mate—“and a very just remark it was too—that there’s always something wrong. . . .”
“Eavesdropping is what’s wrong with you, Mr. Sterne.”
“Now, if you would only listen to me for a moment, Mr. Massy, sir, I could . . .”
“You are a sneak,” interrupted Massy in a great hurry, and even managed to get so far as to repeat, “a common sneak,” before the mate had broken in argumentatively—
“Now, sir, what is it you want? You want . . .”