Billy Bowline’s indignation was expressed by sundry snorts, sniffs, and angry hitchings up of his trowsers, but was not the less emphatic because not expressed in the admiral’s vigorous language.
“Come along, sir,” cried the admiral when Brydell had finished his brief account. “I’m going to see Grubb with you.”
The admiral mounted the rickety stairs with his quick step, as alert as Brydell’s. Billy Bowline remained below because, as he whispered to Brydell:—
“There ain’t no love lost between sailors and jirenes, and Grubb, he were the best jirene I ever see; but I don’t reckon as how he keers about seein’ sailor men when he is in trouble.”
After knocking at the door the admiral and Brydell entered Grubb’s little room. By the light of the small lamp they could see him distinctly, and he looked more gaunt, more ashy, and nearer death than the evening before. But he was feebly delighted to see them.
“How’s this, Grubb?” began the admiral in his “quarterdeck voice.” “You must get up. You must get well. You were the best orderly I ever had, and it never occurred to me that you intended getting out of the service like this.”
“Thankee, sir, for your good opinions,” answered Grubb, a light appearing in his sunken eyes, “but I can’t git well.”
“Nonsense, nonsense. You’ve had trouble with your boy; but you must bear up—bear up, sir.”
“Ah, sir, askin’ your pardon, you don’t know what it is to have trouble with your own flesh and blood! I couldn’t abear to be p’inted out as Grubb, the feller whose son was drove out of his class for lyin’. I’m a plain man, sir, and maybe that’s why I hold on to be respectable so hard—I ain’t got nothin’ else. I didn’t think, though, ’twould go so hard with me. I made up my mind in a minute to git out o’ the corps and take off this uniform as I respects and loves. But I didn’t think to fall down in the street, and I know I’ve got a shock as I’ll never get over.”
The admiral could not but believe him. For three or four days Brydell and the admiral went to see Grubb regularly, and so did Dr. Wayne, and it was plain to the most inexperienced eye that the marine was traveling fast out of this world. At last one evening about the usual hour of dusk, when Brydell went in the room he saw that Grubb had started on the great journey. His face was slightly flushed and his eyes bright, and occasionally his mind would wander.