“My godfather, how Pills glared! There will be trouble on this ship about a woman before long, or I’m a Dutchman. An’ didn’t the skipper rise at the fly, too! Huh!”
He uttered the concluding monosyllable aloud.
“Did you speak?” inquired Elsie, severely.
“Eh? No, Miss Maxwell.”
“Oh, I thought you wanted to say something.”
“Not a word. Too much talking makes my back stiff.”
“Your physical peculiarities are amazing, Mr. Boyle.”
“Huh, it’s odd how things take some people. I once knew a chap, skipper of the Flower of the Ocean, who could drink a hogshead of beer an’ be as sober as a judge except in one leg, an’ that was a wooden one.”
She laughed. It was impossible to be vexed with him.
“You have met some very remarkable shipmasters, if all you say be true,” she cried.