Rooney Machowl, who stepped forward as he spoke, was a fine specimen of a man, and would have done credit to any nationality. He was about the middle height, very broad and muscular, and apparently twenty-three years of age. His countenance was open, good-humoured, and good-looking, though by no means classic—the nose being turned-up, the eyes small and twinkling, and the mouth large.
“Have you ever seen anything of this sort before?” asked Baldwin, with a motion of his hand towards the diving apparatus scattered on the deck.
“No sur, nothin’.”
“Was you bred to any trade?”
“Yis, sur, I’m a ship-carpenter.”
“An’ why don’t you stick to that?”
“Bekase, sur, it won’t stick to me. There’s nothin’ doin’ apparently in this poort. Annyhow I can’t git work, an’ I’ve a wife an’ chick at home, who’ve bin so long used to praties and bacon that their stummicks don’t take kindly to fresh air fried in nothin’. So ye see, sur, findin’ it difficult to make a livin’ above ground, I’m disposed to try to make it under water.”
While Rooney Machowl was speaking Baldwin regarded him with a fixed and critical gaze. What his opinion of the recruit was did not, however, appear on his countenance or in his reply, for he merely said, “Humph! Well, we’ll see. You’ll begin your education in your noo profession by payin’ partikler attention to all that is said an’ done around you.”
“Yis, sur,” returned Machowl, respectfully touching the peak of his cap and wrinkling his forehead very much, while he looked on at the further proceedings of the divers with that expression of deep earnest sincerity of attention which—whether assumed or genuine—is only possible to the countenance of an Irishman.
During this colloquy the two men standing by the pump-case, and two other men who appeared to be supernumeraries, listened with much interest, but the diver seated on the plank, resting and calmly smoking his pipe, gazed with apparent indifference at the sea, from which he had recently emerged.