"Not you," replied Watchett; "you never, and you know it. I'm not one and never hankered to be. I'm rough and tough and a seaman of the old school. I'm no sea dandy. I'm Jack Watchett, as plain as you like."
"You're much plainer than I like," retorted his cousin's wife, "very much plainer."
And though she kissed Mary Watchett she wondered greatly how any woman could kiss Mary Watchett's husband.
"If I ever get a chance," she said. "But there, how can I?"
She wept a little out of pure anger as she returned to the Star of the South. When she got on board she found the mate and second mate standing by the gangway.
"Is there no chance of these men, Mr. Semple"?
"No more than if it was the year '49 and this was San Francisco," said the mate, who was a hoary-headed old sea-dog, a great deal more like the old school than "plain Jack Watchett."
"Why doesna the captain take they Greeks, ma'am?" asked McGill, the second mate, who had been almost long enough out of Scotland to forget his own language.
"Because he doesn't like any but Englishmen," said Connie Ryder.
"And Scotch, of course," she added, as she saw McGill's jaw fall a little. "I've been trying to get Captain Watchett to give us another day."