"An' ain't I doin' double work, with that damn Mouse forever sneakin' up to the engine-room?"
Larry, giving no sign that he had heard Dan's growling answer, drove his scoop into the coal, and with a swinging thrust spread its heaped load evenly over the glowing bed in the fire-box. He closed the fire-door with a quick slam, for in a pitching boiler-room burning coal can fall from an open furnace as suddenly as new coal can be thrown into it.
"So, you're back," Dan sneered. "It's a wonder you wouldn't stay the watch up there with your betters."
Larry went silently on with his work.
"Soft, ain't it, you jellyfish, havin' me do your job? You eel, you—." Dan poured out a stream of abusive oaths.
Still Larry did not answer.
"Dan's ravin' mad," a man on the port boilers said. "Will he soak the Mouse to-night, I wonder."
"Sure," the stoker beside him answered. "An' it's a dirty shame for a big devil like him to smash the little un."
"You're new on this ship; you don't know 'em. The Mouse is a regular mother to that booze-fighter, an' small thanks he gets. But wait, an' you'll see somethin' in a minute."
Dan's temper, however, was not yet at fighting heat. He glared a moment longer at Larry, then turned sullenly to his boiler. He was none too steady on his legs, and this, with the lurching of the ship, made his work ragged. After a few slipshod passes he struck the door-frame squarely with his scoop, spilling the coal to the floor.