CHAPTER X.
CONVERSATION.
In the young man’s kindled mood, composition was easy, and by two o’clock his article was done.
He was leaning back in his chair, enjoying the consciousness of eighty dollars earned, when the door opened, and in came the Captain, with his head very much on one side, and an ominous gravity on his quaint features. He did not remove his straw-hat, but stood surveying Harrington with a critical eye, like a marine raven. A slow smile twinkled around the young man’s bearded mouth, for he instantly divined what the Captain had come for.
“Well, Eldad,” he said, “it’s the rent, I know. I see rent written in every lineament of your ingenuous countenance. Come, sit down.”
The Captain slowly lifted his clenched fist and shook it at Harrington, then lounged about, seated himself on the sofa under the windows, and cocked up his eye at the trap in the ceiling.
“Could I smoke, John?” he asked, suddenly dropping his glance at the young man.
“Certainly. Light up, and smoke away.”
Keeping his head on one side, and his round, bright eyes intent on the smiling Harrington, the Captain produced a short pipe and a match from the hollow of his left hand, and putting the pipe in one corner of his mouth, lit the match on his sleeve, and igniting the tobacco, began to blow a cloud.