“That is manifestly impossible. Mr. Hawkson has been mate of her for some time. That was probably a little joke of Watkins, the steward.” Here he threw up his head and burst into a rattling laugh, his mouth slightly open, but his face otherwise unmoved.
“He, he, he!” he rattled, “you’ll be a mate fast enough,--a gunner’s mate. And, if that don’t suit you, Mr. Hawkson will introduce you to the gunner’s daughter. Go forward now and remember that if you come on the weather side of the quarter-deck while I’m here, I’ll write my name on you with a hot iron. Do you see? Ho, ho, ho! That Watkins is a tricky knave and you have my permission to manhandle him. There he is now. Breakfast--”
As he spoke, the venerable old scoundrel emerged from the door of the forward cabin, and, standing upon the poop step, announced that the morning meal was ready. There was little left for me but to get forward. The “gunner’s daughter” on that ship I knew was the sinister name applied to the breech of one of the guns, and an introduction consisted of being held over it with a naked back, while a sailor cut the victim to ribbons with a cat-o’-nine-tails.
As the old rascal Watkins stood there announcing breakfast, he recognized me and grinned.
“It isn’t well to laugh early in the morning,” I said, as I went past him. The captain went below, and I stopped on the last step of the poop-ladder. “For sometimes it’s rude.” Here I caught him a cuff with the flat of my hand that sounded all over the deck, knocking him a couple of fathoms toward the main-hatch. A man to leeward laughed outright, and even Hawkson chuckled.
The old fellow recovered himself, and his grin was conspicuously absent as he came toward me in a menacing manner.
“Now you trot along, Noah,” said I. “I’ll give you one like that every little while until I find that advance money back in my pocket.”
He stopped in front of me, and his mouth worked nervously. His eyes seemed to disappear under his shaggy brows, and his beard fairly bristled with rage.
I was a stout man among stout men, and he saw there was little use speaking out loud. Then he turned and went into the cabin, where Captain Howard was bawling for him to bring his coffee.
“Better have let the old man alone, Heywood,” said Hawkson. “There’s a lot of trouble bottled up in his old carcass.”