“You can read me, I s’pose?” said Thomsett sneeringly.
“Easy, my lad,” said the other, still preserving, though by an obvious effort, his appearance of judicial calm. “I’ve seen your sort before. One in pertikler I call to mind. He’s doing fourteen years now, pore chap. But you needn’t be alarmed, cap’n. Your secret is safe enough with me.”
Captain Thomsett got up and pranced up and down the cabin, but Captain Stubbs remained calm. He had seen that sort before. It was interesting to the student of human nature, and he regarded his visitor with an air of compassionate interest. Then Captain Thomsett resumed his seat, and, to preserve his own fair fame, betrayed that of George.
“I knew it was either you or somebody your kind ’art was interested in,” said the discomfited Stubbs, as they resumed the interrupted game. “You can’t help your face, cap’n. When you was thinking about that pore chap’s danger it was working with emotion. It misled me, I own it, but it ain’t often I meet such a feeling ’art as yours.”
Captain Thomsett, his eyes glowing affectionately, gripped his friend’s hand, and in the course of the game listened to an exposition of the law relating to bigamy of a most masterly and complicated nature, seasoned with anecdotes calculated to make the hardiest of men pause on the brink of matrimony and think seriously of their position.
“Suppose this woman comes aboard after pore George,” said Thomsett. “What’s the best thing to be done?”
“The first thing,” said Captain Stubbs, “is to gain time. Put her off.”
“Off the ship, d’ye mean?” inquired the other.
“No, no,” said the jurist “Pretend he’s ill and can’t see anybody. By gum, I’ve got it.”
He slapped the table with his open hand, and regarded the other triumphantly.