Roy entered and found himself face to face with the man whose letter he had rescued. He was so surprised that for an instant he couldn’t say a word.
“Hello, youngster,” said the man, as he took a quick glance at Roy. “Glad to see you. Come in. Just let me finish this manifest and I’ll talk to you all night.” But when he took a second look at Roy, he dropped the sheaf of papers he was examining and stepped forward.
“Now how the deuce did you get that?” he exclaimed, as he examined Roy’s eye.
As Roy started to tell him he interrupted, “Never mind how you got it. Let’s get it fixed first and talk about it afterward. Come with me, youngster.”
He darted out of his office and into his stateroom, with Roy close at his heels. Seemingly with one motion he set the hot water flowing in his wash-bowl and drew from a closet a bottle of vaseline. Almost before Roy knew what was happening, the man had him in a chair with a stinging hot compress over his eye, and another ready for application when the first one cooled. The man’s dexterity amazed Roy, who was anything but clumsy himself. When the compresses had done their work, the man began to rub the injured flesh about the bruised eye with vaseline. Round and round his fingers went, softly but firmly pressing the flesh, until Roy wondered if the man would ever stop. Finally the massage ended and a poultice was quickly made and deftly applied.
“There,” said the man, stepping back and viewing his job critically. “You’re fixed up as good as any ambulance surgeon could have fixed you. Now let’s hear how you got that decoration.”
“First, let me thank you for your help,” said Roy gratefully. “I’ll look bad enough as it is, but I’d have looked a thousand times worse if you hadn’t helped me. I wouldn’t care so much if the captain hadn’t seen me.”
“Did he, though? And what did he say?”
“He accused me of being drunk, and when I tried to explain how I came by a black eye, he told me not to make it worse by lying.”
Roy’s companion chuckled. “What did you tell him?” he demanded.