Captain West showed his disbelief. His thin lips parted and he started to laugh. It wasn’t a friendly laugh. Listening to it made Sandy feel anything but good-humored.
“C’mon, kid.” Captain West stared. “Let’s have the truth. What’s your connection with Old Man Kennedy?”
Sandy Steele was furious inwardly. He hadn’t liked the way the tall man topside had referred to Mr. Kennedy, but to hear Captain West—the valued skipper of the Kennedy Shipping Line—going on in the same disrespectful tone, well, that was going too far.
“I am telling the truth, Captain,” Sandy said coldly. “I only met Mr. Kennedy today, and that was by accident.” Captain West raised his thick, dark eyebrows quizzically, and Sandy, with great reluctance, launched into the tale of the ore bucket.
When he had finished, he found, to his amazement, that Captain West was regarding him with what could only be disgust!
“So that’s the answer,” Captain West muttered. With a sort of displeasure, he swung around and began writing again.
“All right, Steele,” he said over his shoulder. “Mr. Briggs will show you and the other boy to your quarters. And you can report to Cookie in the morning.”
“Cookie!”
Sandy Steele couldn’t believe his ears. Before he could stop himself, he had taken two quick steps around to the side of Captain West’s desk. With swift, reddening anger, Captain West threw down his fountain pen and slapped two hairy paws over the letter he’d been writing.
“Are you insubordinate already?” he shouted. “Who do you think you are, questioning a skipper’s orders like that? D’ya think I’m going to let a pair of punk kids the likes of you work topside where the men are? Not on your life! You’ll report to the galley where you belong, and leave the men’s work to the men. Now, get out of my sight!”