“If anybody should happen to come aboard this vessel,” said Flower, without deigning to reply to the question, “and ask questions about the master of it, he’s as unlike me, Jack, as any two people in this world can be. D’ye understand?”
“You’d better tell me what you’ve been up to,” urged the mate.
“As for your inquisitiveness, Jack, it don’t become you,” said Flower, with severity; “but I don’t suppose it’ll be necessary to trouble you at all.”
He walked out of the cabin and stood listening at the foot of the companion-ladder, and the mate heard him walk a little way up. When he reentered the cabin his face had cleared, and he smiled comfortably.
“I shall just turn in for an hour,” he said, amiably; “good-night, Jack.”
“Good-night,” said the curious mate. “I say——” he sat up suddenly in his bunk and looked seriously at the skipper.
“Well?” said the other.
“I suppose,” said the mate, with a slight cough—“I suppose it’s nothing about that girl that was down here?”
“Certainly not,” said Flower, violently. He extinguished the lamp, and, entering his state-room, closed the door and locked it, and the mate, after lying a little while drowsily wondering what it all meant, fell asleep again.