Captain Burke, appearing not to notice them, told his wife he was going to fetch his sextant. Mr. Green, the sour-leering mate, was trudging the weather side of the quarter-deck. The man who had first risen, the hairy one of the Scotch cap, exclaimed, as the four of them came to a halt in the gangway:
'Can we have a word with the capt'n, sir?'
'What d'e want?' answered the mate, speaking with half his back turned on them as though he addressed some one out upon the water.
'We're come to complain that the beef to-day ain't according to the articles.'
'As how?' said the mate, still looking seawards.
''Tain't sweet, sir.'
'No call to eat of it,' said the mate, turning his head and letting his leering eye droop upon them.
'That's not the way to speak,' whispered Mrs. Burke to me with a note of impatience and temper. 'Why shouldn't the meat be tainted? It's so in butchers' shops often enough.'
'If there's no call to eat of it there's no call to turn to on it,' said one of the men with a surly laugh.