"Mind your own business, Mr. Dodd."
"Right, sir; you are responsible for this man's life, not I. But it's my business, Captain Home, to report to you that the bos'n's locker is too small to kennel a dog. There's no air to breathe, and barely standing room. It is slow murder, and has put the men in an ugly mood, a very ugly mood, endangering your life, Captain Home."
"How dare you! Silence! Go below, sir. This is rank mutiny!"'
Next morning, very early, the captain took all that out of the bos'n, asking what the devil he meant by locking up one of the seamen in that doghole.
VI
The bos'n's locker must have been, apart from its perfume, cramped as an upright coffin, for Bill dreamed that he was grandfather's clock stuck in a corner of the old bar parlor at the "Fox," condemned from everlasting to everlasting to point out the minutes with one hand, the hours with the other. And really there was no room even to point.
Then into his dream swept Rain's beloved presence.
"Hai ya!" cried Rain. "I wouldn't point if I were you. I'd stop."
The scene of his dream had changed. He was in Dreamland.
"I haven't been wound up," he answered sorrowfully, "since we cleared Ushant. I'm feeling awful—run down, you know; but if the old man catches me——"