"Does he look like it, sir?" asked Wiggins, laughing.
"He looks the toughest case you ever set eyes on," said Simpson. "But you'd have smiled to see the way the old man slugged him off the poop. And yet there's something about him I don't tumble to. I guess that's where his madness lies. Guess I'll cure him or kill him by the time we get off Sandy Hook.—Now then, you admiral, come down here and start up the fore rigging, and do it quick, or I'll know the reason why."
And the Knight Commander of the Bath came down as he was bid, and having cast a perplexed eye over Simpson and Wiggins, who sniggered at him with amused and savage contempt, he went forward in a hurry.
"This is a nightmare," he said; "I'm dreaming. Damme, perhaps I'm dead!"
When he had overhauled the gear at the fore—and being a real seaman, he did it well—Wiggins called him down to work on deck, and he found himself among his new mates. By now they were all aware that he believed he was an admiral, and that he had spoken to Simpson in a way that no man had ever done. That was so much to his credit, but since he was mad he was a fit object of jeers. They jeered him accordingly, and when they were at breakfast the trouble began.
"Say, are you an admiral?" asked Knight, the biggest tough on board except Simpson and Wiggins.
And the admiral did not answer. He looked at Knight with a gloomy, introspective eye.
"Mind your own business," he said, when the question was repeated.
And Knight hove a full pannikin of tea at him. This compliment was received very quietly, and the admiral rose and went on deck.
"Takes water at once," said Knight; "he ain't got the pluck of a mouse."