The morning meal, therefore, passed off in constrained silence. The captain ate voraciously and vociferously, pushed back his chair, and went on deck to relieve the mate. The latter, a stunted little Cockney with a wizened countenance and a mind as foul as his tongue, got small change of his attempts to engage the passenger in conversation on topics that he considered fit for discussion. After the sixth or eighth snubbing he rose in dudgeon, discharged a poisonous bit of insolence, and retired to his berth, leaving Kirkwood to finish his breakfast in peace; which the latter did literally, to the last visible scrap of food and the ultimate drop of coffee, poor as both were in quality.
To the tune of a moderating wind, the morning wearied away. Kirkwood went on deck once, for distraction from the intolerable monotony of it all, got a sound drenching of spray, with a glimpse of a dark line on the eastern horizon, which he understood to be the low littoral of Holland, and was glad to dodge below once more and dry himself.
He had the pleasure of the mate's company at dinner, the captain remaining on deck until Hobbs had finished and gone up to relieve him; and by that time Kirkwood likewise was through.
Stryker blew down with a blustery show of cheer. "Well, well, my little man!" (It happened that he topped Kirkwood's stature by at least five inches.) "Enj'yin' yer sea trip?"
"About as much as you'd expect," snapped Kirkwood.
"Ow?" The captain began to shovel food into his face. (The author regrets he has at his command no more delicate expression that is literal and illustrative.) Kirkwood watched him, fascinated with suspense; it seemed impossible that the man could continue so to employ his knife without cutting his throat from the inside. But years of such manipulation had made him expert, and his guest, keenly disappointed, at length ceased to hope.
Between gobbles Stryker eyed him furtively.
"'Treat you all right?" he demanded abruptly.
Kirkwood started out of a brown study. "What? Who? Why, I suppose I ought to be—indeed, I am grateful," he asserted. "Certainly you saved my life, and—"
"Ow, I don't mean that." Stryker gathered the imputation into his paw and flung it disdainfully to the four winds of Heaven. "Bless yer 'art, you're welcome; I wouldn't let no dorg drownd, 'f I could 'elp it. No," he declared, "nor a loonatic, neither."