‘What made the “owner” so ratty, Johnson?’ asked Raymond, on his way across to the Parentis.
The officer in question, who was captain of the boat lying between Austin’s and Blake’s, shook his head sadly, and then burst out laughing.
‘It’s all UP with Little Willy, I’m afraid, unless he gets over it, which I very much doubt. And everything was going so splendidly, too.’ He sighed heavily.
‘What was it, you blighter?’ cried Austin. ‘He came aboard my packet in a state of fury, and I had to do my dirty damndest to smooth things over.’
‘It wasn’t my fault, George. I couldn’t foresee it or I should have taken jolly good care to prevent it. One of my stokers, whom I’m going to hang to-morrow, by the way, is the proud possessor of a monkey. I took particular care that the brute should be sent inboard before the inspection, but you know what those ruddy things are, and somehow or other it must have sneaked aboard again. It was hanging from a beam under the torpedo-hatch, with part of an old ensign wrapped round its head, and when the old man passed underneath on his way for’ard, it dropped on his shoulders.’
‘Well?’
‘That’s all.’
* * * * *
Monday morning dawned dull and dismal. A steady downpour of thin drizzling rain that wet through and chilled to the marrow did not tend to brighten matters or relieve the gloom that had settled on the coxswain as he surveyed the weather with the eye of a fatalist. The hour of seven a.m. does not tend to hilarity.
‘This ruddy weather,’ he remarked to the unemotional landscape, ‘near drives me to drink. Near drives me to drink, that’s wot it does.’