Captain Dove rose and retired into his sleeping-cabin without further words; while Slyne, picking out with a two-pronged fork the cleanest of the beans on his plate, smiled sneeringly to himself.
"What's the latest long-shore fashion, Slyne?" the old man asked after an interval. Slyne knew by his tone that he had dismissed dull care from his mind and was prepared to be quarrelsome again.
"It wouldn't suit a figure like yours," he answered coolly, and was gratified to hear another hoarse growl. For, strange though it may seem, Captain Dove was not without vanity. "All you really need to worry about is how to keep sober. And I want it to be understood from the start—"
"Not so much of it now!" snarled Captain Dove from his cabin. "You attend to your own business—and I'll attend to mine. I know how to behave myself—among gentlemen. And, don't you forget, either, that I'm going ashore to play my own hand. I've a card or two up my sleeve, Mister Slyne, that will maybe euchre your game for you—if you try to bluff too high."
Slyne swore hotly, under his breath. He would have given a great deal to know exactly what the old man meant by that mysterious threat, and only knew that it would be useless to ask him. There was nothing for it but to put up with his capricious humours, as patiently as might be—although Slyne shivered in anticipation of the strain that might entail—till he could be dispensed with or got rid of altogether.
Nor, as it presently appeared, were his fears at all ill-founded. For Captain Dove emerged from his cabin got up for shore-going in a guise at sight of which Slyne could by no means suppress an involuntary groan.
"I'm all ready now," Captain Dove announced. "Will you pay for a cab if I call one?"
"My car's waiting," Slyne returned, and, as the old man whistled amazedly over that further and unexpected proof that his former accomplice's fortunes had changed for the better, "You look like a fool in that outfit," said Slyne. "The right rig-out for motoring is a tweed suit and a soft cap."
Captain Dove was very visibly annoyed. He had been at particular pains to array himself properly. "You want to be the only swell in the party, of course!" he grunted. "You're jealous, that's what's the matter with you." And he fell to polishing his furry, old-fashioned top-hat with a tail of the scanty, ill-fitting frock-coat he had donned along with a noisome waistcoat in honour of the occasion.
Slyne shrugged his shoulders, despairingly, and, having made an end of his unappetising meal, prepared for the road. Then he lighted a cigar very much at his leisure, while Captain Dove regarded him grimly, and led the way on deck without further words.