“I would! If only to spite that figurehead-procuring bloodsucker. I am an old bird here and don’t you forget it. Come and see me on board some day!”
I spent my first evening in port quietly in my ship’s cuddy; and glad enough was I to think that the shore life which strikes one as so pettily complex, discordant, and so full of new faces on first coming from sea, could be kept off for a few hours longer. I was however fated to hear the Jacobus note once more before I slept.
Mr. Burns had gone ashore after the evening meal to have, as he said, “a look round.” As it was quite dark when he announced his intention I didn’t ask him what it was he expected to see. Some time about midnight, while sitting with a book in the saloon, I heard cautious movements in the lobby and hailed him by name.
Burns came in, stick and hat in hand, incredibly vulgarised by his smart shore togs, with a jaunty air and an odious twinkle in his eye. Being asked to sit down he laid his hat and stick on the table and after we had talked of ship affairs for a little while:
“I’ve been hearing pretty tales on shore about that ship-chandler fellow who snatched the job from you so neatly, sir.”
I remonstrated with my late patient for his manner of expressing himself. But he only tossed his head disdainfully. A pretty dodge indeed: boarding a strange ship with breakfast in two baskets for all hands and calmly inviting himself to the captain’s table! Never heard of anything so crafty and so impudent in his life.
I found myself defending Jacobus’s unusual methods.
“He’s the brother of one of the wealthiest merchants in the port.” The mate’s eyes fairly snapped green sparks.
“His grand brother hasn’t spoken to him for eighteen or twenty years,” he declared triumphantly. “So there!”
“I know all about that,” I interrupted loftily.