“Not I—much obliged,” he said, smiling, and still staring hard. He had teeth like the half-caste, but the resemblance stopped there.
“The captain said I might come and look after you, but if you want to go to sleep, do,” said I.
“Why would I, if you’ll talk to me a bit?” was his reply; and resting his head on the edge of, his hammock and looking me well over, he added, “Did they pick you up as well?”
I laughed and wrung some salt water out of my sleeve.
“No. I’ve not been in the sea, but I’ve been on deck, and it’s just as wet. It always is wet at sea,” I added in a tone of experience.
His eyes twinkled as if I amused him. “That, indeed? And yourself, are ye—a midshipman?”
It had been taken for granted that our new hand was “a gentleman.” I never doubted it, though he spoke with an accent that certainly recalled old Biddy Macartney; a sort of soft ghost of a brogue with a turn up at the end of it, as if every sentence came sliding and finished with a spring, and I did wish I could have introduced myself as a midshipman—instead of having to mutter, “No, I’m a stowaway.”
He raised himself higher in his hammock.
“A stowaway? What fun! And what made ye go? Were ye up to some kind of diversion at home, and had to come out of it, eh? Or were ye bored to extinction, or what? (Country life in England is mighty dull, so they tell me.) I suppose it was French leave that ye took, as ye say you’re a stowaway? I’m asking ye a heap of impertinent questions, bad manners to me!”
Which was true. But he asked them so kindly and eagerly, I could only feel that sympathy is a very pleasant thing, even when it takes the form of a catechism that is all questions, and no room for the answers. Moreover, I suspect that he rattled on partly to give me time to leave off blushing and feel at ease with him.