"No," he said. He did not know that Billy, with a professional ardour that did him credit, had coloured Hunt and himself with walnut juice on their faces and hands till they appeared to have been tanned the three skins deep.
And just as Gawthrop denied that he knew Hunt, the boson's whistle blew.
"You'd best come on deck. They're goin' to pick the watches," said Tom. And Gawthrop, still in a maze, followed the rest. When the fresh air blew on him, his mind cleared as suddenly as if a fog had rolled up.
"By the Lord, I've been done," he said, and he knew it was Gardiner who had done him. "All right," he said, "I'll get even. The captain must put back. I'll pay him to do it."
His knowledge of the sea was limited. Though he was the citizen of a republic, he had been accustomed to deference. That was when he was Sibley Gawthrop. He was now a nameless man in dungaree trousers and a blue shirt, in a ship bound for London with a fine fair wind. He walked aft with the defiant yet shamed air of a man who has been at a fancy ball and finds himself surprised by daylight.
"I want to see the captain," he said to the first man whom he met aft. It happened to be Jones, the second "greaser."
"That's him on the poop," said Jones, staring at him; "take a good look at him, you drunken swab. Why the blue blazes didn't you come on board before?"
"My good fellow," said Gawthrop haughtily, "there has been a mistake. I must be put on shore immediately."
"Oh," said Jones, "oh, indeed! There has been a fatal error, has there? And I'm your good fellow, am I? Take that, you swine."
And what Gawthrop took caused him to sit down very suddenly on a hard teak deck.