"Only if we run afoul of a cutter, Liane." Monk tried to speak reassuringly. "And that's not likely in this weather. As for the fog, it's a dirty nuisance to any navigator but, as I said, may quite possibly prove our salvation. I know these waters like a book, I've sailed them ever since I was old enough to tell a tiller from a mainsheet. I can smell my way in, if it comes to that, through the blindest fog the Atlantic ever brewed."
"Then you do things with your nostrils, too?" Phinuit enquired innocently. "I've often wondered if all the intellect was located in the eyebrows."
Monk glared, growled, and hastily sought the air of the deck. Liane Delorme eyed Phinuit with amused reproach.
"Really, my young friend!"
"I can't help it, mademoiselle," Phinuit asserted sulkily. "Too much is enough. I've watched him making faces with the top of his head so long I dream of geometrical diagrams laid out in eyebrows--and wake up screaming. And they call this a pleasure craft!"
With an aggrieved air he sucked at his pipe for a few minutes. "Besides," he added suddenly, "somebody's got to be comic relief, and I don't notice anybody else in a sweat to be the Life and Soul of the ship."
He favoured Lanyard with a morose stare. "Why don't you ever put your shoulder to the wheel, Lanyard? Why leave it all to me? Come on; be a sport, cut a caper, crack a wheeze, do something to get a giggle!"
"But I am by no means sure you do not laugh at me too much, as it is."
"Rot!... Tell you what." Phinuit sat up with a gleaming eye of inspiration. "You can entertain mademoiselle and me no end, if you like. Spill the glad tidings."
"Glad tidings?"