“Not a mite of it, Labe,” replied Daniel earnestly. “There's plenty of room and you can stay here along with your wife just as well as not. I'd like to have you. Maybe—” with a suggestive wink, “maybe you can kind of—well, kind of keep things runnin' smooth—in the galley. You know what I mean.”
Laban grinned. “Cal'late you won't have no more trouble that way, Cap'n,” he observed. “I guess that's over. Zuby and I understand each other better'n we did. I THOUGHT she was mighty—”
“Mighty what?” Mr. Ginn had broken off his sentence in the middle.
“Oh, nothin'. It's all right, Cap'n Dott. Don't you worry about Zuby and me. We'll boss this end of the craft; you 'tend to the rest of it. Say, that Hungerford swab ain't come back, has he?”
“No. No, he hasn't. He's gone for good, it looks like. Sent for his trunk and gone. That's queer, too. No, he hasn't come back.”
Laban seemed disappointed. “Well, all right,” he said. “If he should come, just send for me. I'd just as soon talk to him as not—rather, if anything.”
The captain shook his head in a puzzled way.
“That business of—of him and Zuba was the strangest thing,” he declared. “I can't make head nor tail of it, and Gertie won't talk about it at all. He said 'twas a mistake, and of course it must have been. Either that or he'd gone crazy. No sane man would—”
“What's that?” It was Mr. Ginn's turn to question, and Daniel's to look foolish. “What's that no sane man would do?” demanded Laban sharply.
“Why—why, go away and leave us without sayin' good-by,” explained the captain, with surprising presence of mind. “Er—well, so long, Laban. Make yourself at home. I've got to see how Serena is.”