“Golden Cloud, sir; boat Cap’in Flower is on,” said Joe, slowly.
Fraser regarded him sternly. “What do you know about it?” he asked.
Joe looked round helplessly. At such moments Willyum Green was a tower of strength, but at the present time he was fooling about helping the ship’s cat to wash itself.
“What do you know about it?” repeated Fraser.
“Will-yum told me, sir,” said Joe, hastily.
Mr. Green being summoned, hastily put down the cat and came aft, while Joe, with a full confidence in his friend’s powers, edged a few feet away, and listened expectantly as the skipper interrogated him.
“Yes, sir, I did tell Joe, sir,” he answered, with a reproachful glance at that amateur. “I met Cap’in Flower that evening again, late, an’ he told me himself. I’m sorry to see by this morning’s paper that his ship is overdue.”
“That’ll do,” said Fraser, turning away.
The men moved off slowly, Mr. Green’s reproaches being forestalled by the evidently genuine compliments of Joe.
“If I’d got a ’ead like you, Will-yum,” he said, enviously, “I’d be a loryer or a serlicitor, or some-think o’ the kind.”