“He struggled and rose up in the cot. His eyes were staring at the blank wall. I held him hard for an instant and he suddenly relaxed. Then he fell back dead.
“Then, you see, there was the Albatross that sailed——”
“But hold on a bit. Stop a minute!” said Mr. Enlis. “If you keep on like that, Gantline, you’ll ruin the passenger trade as far as wimmen are concerned. As for stewardesses, there won’t be one afloat if you keep croaking. You seem to think wimmen do nothing but harm afloat, whereas I know plenty who have done good. I don’t see what wimmen have to do with wittles, anyhow?”
“Who in the name of Davy Jones said they had?” growled Gantline, angrily. “I’m no sky-pilot, and I——”
“Right you are, mate, you say true there, for if I was to go to you to get my last heading I’d fetch up on a lee shore where there’d be few strange faces.”
Gantline gave a grunt of disgust. “That’s just the way with you every time any one starts a line of argument to prove a thing’s so; you always sheer off, or bring in something that’s got nothing to do with the case and don’t signify. Here I’ve been showing that bad luck to ships is caused by something wrong with the skippers, and here you are trying to bring wimmen into the case, just as if your thoughts ran on nothing else. But, pshaw! everybody knows what kind of a fellow you are when you’re on the beach.” And he jerked his pipe into his pocket and walked aft.
“Never mind him,” said Mr. Enlis. “He’s an old croaker, and it’s just such growling that makes trouble for skippers. But whenever you see a man talk like that there’s always something behind it. Yes, sir, every time.”
“How do you mean?” asked Chips.
“Well, when a man’s soured on wimmen there is always a cause for it, and I happen to know something about Gantline’s past. It’s the old story, but who wants to know how Jim or Jack’s wife fell in love with him? Neither does any one care about how she comes to leave him, though nearly all story books are written about such things, and that’s the reason I never read them. There ain’t much novelty in that line.
“Lord, love is all alike, just the same in the poor man as in the rich; but what I was about to say is this: Gantline, here, gives the idea that wimmen are dangerous afloat and leaves off telling anything good about them. That ain’t exactly fair. It’s true most wimmen who follow the sea are not exactly to be considered fighting craft, and are mighty apt to strike their colors do you but let it be known you’re out for prizes. Still, I know of cases where they’ve done a power of good. There was ‘Short Moll,’ who was stewardess with old man Fane, and she made him.