“I’m to be master,” replied the other, quietly.
“You?” said Ben, with offensive astonishment, as he saw the death of his own ambitious hopes in that quarter. “You to be master?”
Nibletts nodded and coloured. “Cap’n Barber just gave me the berth,” he remarked.
Ben sighed and shook his head. “He’ll never be the same man ag’in,” he affirmed, positively; “’e went away: from ’ere dazed, quite dazed. ’Ow was ’e when you saw ’im?”
“He was all right,” was the reply.
Ben shook his head as one who knew better. “I ’ope he won’t get no more shocks,” he observed, gravely. “It’ll be nice for you to get to sea ag’in, Cap’n.”
Captain Nibletts raised his weather-beaten countenance and sniffed the air with relish.
“You’ll be able to see the Diadem as we go by,” continued the sorely-aggravated Ben. “There’s just her masts showing at ’igh water.”
A faint laugh rose from somebody in the hold, and Nibletts, his face a dull red, stole quietly below and took possession of his new quarters. In the course of the day he transferred his belongings to the schooner, and, as though half fearful that his new command might yet slip through his fingers, slept on board.
On the way back to London a sum in simple proportion, set by Joe, helped to exercise the minds of the crew in the rare intervals which the new mate allowed them for relaxation: “If Ben was bad on the fust v’y’ge, and much wuss on the second, wot ’ud he be like on the tenth?” All agreed that the answer would require a lot of working. They tarred the rigging, stropped the blocks, and in monkey-like attitudes scraped the masts. Even the cook received a little instruction in his art, and estranged the affections of all hands by a “three-decker,” made under Ben’s personal supervision.