“Oh, splendid. Stand out o’ the way, and let me make thy daily bread.”
“Daily!” screams the Donkeyman. “Tell that to the marines. I have one loaf sof’ bread three times a week, an’ there are seven days to a week. Daily! Tell that——”
“Find another ship, me man, find another ship if the Benvenuto don’t suit!” And the Mate passes on to the chart-house, where are many dogs.
“Ay, will I, when we get to Swansea,” says the Donkey man to me, beaming. “There are more ships than parish churches, eh? Mister, I want to speak to you. Come out here.” I go outside in the moonlight, and the mighty Norseman takes hold of the second button of my patrol-jacket.
“Well, Donkey?”
“I ’ave had a letter from Marianna,” he whispers.
“Ah! And so she is——”
“She is Marianna, always Marianna now. A good letter—two and a half page. See, in German, mister. She write it very well, Marianna.” And I behold a letter in German script.
Tastes differ. I am compelled to believe that passion can flow even through German script—aye, when it is written by a Swedish maiden of uncertain caligraphy. Heavenly powers! I turn the sheet to the light from the galley. Surely no mortal can decipher such a farrago of alphabetical obscurity. And I do so want to know what Marianna says for herself. I love Marianna, for the mighty Norseman says she is small and dainty, and her eyes are grey, and—and—well, the resemblance doesn’t end there; so when I tell my friend, he may laugh as much as he pleases. But there had been a quarrel (in German script), and the mighty Norseman had grown mightily misogynistic. His jolly pasty face had been as long as my arm most of the way out, and his sentiments, confided to me each day at seven bells, were discourteous to the sex. But now, behold the cloud lifted: German script has undone its own villainy, and Johann Nicanor Gustaffsen beams.
“I will go ’ome this time, mister,” he says, folding up the reconciling hieroglyphics.