For a time indeed, we went charily by each other.
Still it behooved us, seeing how, in spite of ourselves, we had to work in the same room and there was no way of getting rid of each other’s obnoxious presence, to find a common ground on which we could work and talk. There had never been any real bitterness between us—just jest, you know, but serious jest, a kind of silent sorrow for many fine things gone. Yet still that had been enough to keep everything out of order. Now from time to time each of us thought of restoring the old life in some form, however weak it might be. Without some form of humor the shop was a bore to the mate and the captain, anyhow. Finally the captain sobering to his old state, and the routine work becoming dreadfully monotonous, both mate and captain began to think of some way in which they, at least, could agree.
“Remember the Idlewild, Henry?” asked the ex-captain one day genially, long after time and fair weather had glossed over the wretched memory of previous quarrels and dissensions.
“That I do, John,” I replied pleasantly.
“Great old boat she was, wasn’t she, Henry?”
“She was, John.”
“An’ the bos’n’s mate, he wasn’t such a bad old scout, was he, Henry, even if he wouldn’t quit sweepin’ up the shavin’s?”
“He certainly wasn’t, John. He was a fine little fellow. Remember the chains, John?”
“Haw! Haw!” echoed that worthy, and then, “Do you think the old Idlewild could ever be found where she’s lyin’ down there on the bottom, mate?”
“Well, she might, Captain, only she’d hardly be the same old boat that she was now that she’s been down there so long, would she—all these dissensions and so on? Wouldn’t it be easier to build a new one—don’t you think?”