I had had an extremely busy ten days superintending the fitting out of those junks, and getting them and the gunboats away to their cruising grounds. I think that I had offended pretty nearly everyone in the ship, from the Fleet Surgeon, who disliked parting with so many sick bay stores, to the youngest cadet, who thought that he ought to have been given a chance.
The Skipper was positively in a vile temper all the time, and I, myself, and old Bax, the Fleet Paymaster, who came from the same part of the country as he did, were the only ones who dared to approach him. He simply spat fire whenever anyone spoke to him, and the simplest thing used to bring forth a torrent of oaths, and it was best to beat a hasty retreat.
Don't think that I minded, or anyone else—really. "How's 'Old Lest' this morning?" they would ask, after I had reported morning "divisions" to him, and I must say that I generally had to say "Worse than ever". They would all chuckle at that.
For some reason or other everyone, except the Skipper himself, seemed to be proud of his temper, and the more he roared and swore, the more the men liked him.
"He's the worst-tempered man in the service, I should imagine," the young Padré had remarked one morning, when he and I and Mayhew, the Fleet Surgeon, were walking up and down the quarterdeck, and could hear him storming at "Willum" down below.
"For worst-tempered read best-tempered," Mayhew had replied fierily. "You've only been a 'dog watch' in the service, and when you know something about it, you'll know that you are wrong. Why, man, he's the best Skipper to serve under in the whole blessed navy. Call him bad tempered! Why, great snakes! that's the temper coming out of him instead of being bottled up. It's only fools and rotters who have tempers that don't come out."
I fancy that the Padré's knowledge of human nature was of the slightest, and I also must admit that it was probably very difficult to preach a good sermon to the accompaniment of the Skipper's snores, but he hadn't quite shaken down in his new surroundings.
When he first joined the ship his sermons were full of "my dear brothers", or "dear brethren", and it was as good as a play to see the Skipper's face when he happened to be awake and first heard himself called a "dear brother". I thought he would have had a "fit", and after church he stalked down below without saying a word, Blucher at his heels, and sent for me.
Then out it came. He had bottled it up for nearly twenty minutes, and he pretty well excelled himself. "That little—little—whipper—snapper call 'Old Lest' his 'dear brother'! Don't let him come near 'Old Lest'. I'll 'dear brother' him if he does it again!" and he glared at me and shook his huge fists in my face absolutely unable to say anything more.
"Very good, sir; I will speak to the Chaplain," I had answered, and fled.