“We may pick up something worth defending.”
He then asked me how long I had been at sea, and put many questions which at the time of his asking them struck me as entirely conversational: that is to say, he led me to talk about myself, and the impression produced was that we chatted as a couple of men would who talked to kill time; but, afterward, in thinking of this conversation, I found that it had been adroitly, but absolutely inquisitional—on his part. In fact, I not only related the simple story of my career; I acquainted him with other matters, such as my attainments as a navigator, my ignorance as a linguist, my qualifications as a seaman—and all, forsooth, as though, instead of killing the time till breakfast with idle chat, I was very earnestly submitting my claims to him for some post aboard his brig.
While we walked and talked I remarked that he kept the Dutch mate in the corner of his eye, but he never addressed him. Once he found the brig half a point, perhaps more than half a point, off her course. He spoke strongly and sternly to the man at the helm, but never a word did he say to Van Laar, whom to be sure he should have reprimanded for not conning the brig. I thought this silence very significant.
Presently the lad Jimmy—I called him a lad; his age was about seventeen—this lad came out of the caboose with the cabin breakfast. His knock-kneed legs seemed to have been created for the carriage of a tray full of crockery and eatables along a sharply heaving deck. Galloon trotted out of the caboose at the youth’s heels, and they descended into the cabin together. Presently Jimmy arrived to announce breakfast, and with him was Galloon.
“What is there for breakfast?” inquired Captain Greaves.
“There’s sausage and ’am and tea,” answered the lad.
“Nothing of the sort,” said Greaves. “There is no sausage aboard this ship, and I ordered neither ‘’am,’ as you call it, nor tea. Say eggs and bacon and coffee.”
The lad put himself in the position of a soldier at attention.
“Say eggs and bacon and coffee,” he shouted; and the dog howled in company with the youth.
“Again, if you please.”