“Good-mornin’, Mr. McAlnwick. Sit there! We are alone to-day, as ye see. Nicholas!”
Nicholas is a believer in ritual. He is tolling his little brass hand-bell just as though everyone was here. In a minute he reappears.
“Sir?”
“Is Mr. Hammerton aboard?” A snigger from John Thomas, installed pro tem. in the pantry as the Steward’s aide-de-camp.
“’S in de galley, mister.”
“Does he want any breakfast?”
“No, sir. ’S ’sleep in de galley.” Another snigger.
“What’s the matter with that boy?” thunders my friend the Mate, lifting the dome from ham and eggs.
“He is merely cursed with a sense of humour, Mr. Honna,” I observe, and we avoid conversational rock and shoals until we are ensconced in his private berth.
“The fact is, Mr. McAlnwick, Mr. Hammerton’s a very foolish young feller. Help yourself to some tobacco. Knowin’ as I do that when he went ashore last night he had twenty-six pounds ten in his cash pocket, I wonder he isn’t lyin’ at the bottom o’ the dock instead of in the galley. He will not bank his surplus. And he will get drunk.”