As a matter of fact, Topelius accepted his defeat with a good grace; but the crew of the wrecked Leslie, who were in the same employment, and loyal to their firm, took the thing more bitterly. Rough words and ugly looks were common. Once even they hooted Captain Wicks from the saloon verandah; the Currency Lasses drew out on the other side; for some minutes there had like to have been a battle in Butaritari; and though the occasion passed off without blows, it left on either side an increase of ill-feeling.
No such small matter could affect the happiness of the successful traders. Five days more the ship lay in the lagoon, with little employment for any one but Tommy and the captain, for Topelius’s natives discharged cargo and brought ballast. The time passed like a pleasant dream; the adventurers sat up half the night debating and praising their good fortune, or stayed by day in the narrow isle gaping like Cockney tourists, and on the first of the new year the Currency Lass weighed anchor for the second time and set sail for ’Frisco, attended by the same fine weather and good luck. She crossed the doldrums with but small delay; on a wind and in ballast of broken coral she outdid expectations; and, what added to the happiness of the ship’s company, the small amount of work that fell on them to do was now lessened by the presence of another hand. This was the boatswain of the Leslie. He had been on bad terms with his own captain, had already spent his wages in the saloons of Butaritari, had wearied of the place, and while all his shipmates coldly refused to set foot on board the Currency Lass, he had offered to work his passage to the coast. He was a north of Ireland man, between Scotch and Irish, rough, loud, humorous, and emotional, not without sterling qualities, and an expert and careful sailor. His frame of mind was different indeed from that of his new shipmates. Instead of making an unexpected fortune he had lost a berth, and he was besides disgusted with the rations, and really appalled at the condition of the schooner. A stateroom door had stuck the first day at sea, and Mac (as they called him) laid his strength to it and plucked it from the hinges.
“Glory!” said he, “this ship’s rotten!”
“I believe you, my boy,” said Captain Wicks.
The next day the sailor was observed with his nose aloft.
“Don’t you get looking at these sticks,” the captain said, “or you’ll have a fit and fall overboard.”
Mac turned to the speaker with rather a wild eye. “Why, I see what looks like a patch of dry rot up yonder, that I bet I could stick my fist into,” said he.
“Looks as if a fellow could stick his head into it, don’t it?” returned Wicks. “But there’s no good prying into things that can’t be mended.”
“I think I was a Currency Ass to come on board of her!” reflected Mac.
“Well, I never said she was seaworthy,” replied the captain; “I only said she could show her blooming heels to anything afloat. And besides, I don’t know that it’s dry rot; I kind of sometimes hope it isn’t.—Here; turn to and heave the log; that’ll cheer you up.”