He glanced somewhat dubiously at the black hand-satchel that Harry was carrying, but said nothing about it as they went up the plank. Not so the boatswain; he took one look at it and rolled heavily forward.
“Ax your pardon, young feller,” he said; “but ye’d better not take the hard-luck bag aboard, had you? Don’t you want to leave it down here on the dock? We’ll see that it’s safe till you go ashore again.”
Harry was somewhat surprised, and inclined to resent this seemingly needless interference, but Joe spoke up before he could say anything. “Mr. Stovers,” he said, “this is my friend Harry Desmond, of whom you’ve heard me speak. He’s going up with us this trip as supercargo.”
The big boatswain reached down a hand like a ham, and shook Harry’s awkwardly with it.
“Glad t’ meet you,” he said. “Didn’t mean nothing sassy about the bag, you know, but sailors are queer fellows. ’Tain’t me; I don’t believe it, but the crew think a black bag is full of gales of wind, and lets ’em out when it’s brought aboard ship. See ’em looking at it, now. ’F you could leave it ashore, and bring your dunnage on in a canvas bag, they’d feel better about it. No use getting the men grumbling down for’ard.”
“Certainly,” said Harry politely. “I’ll leave it out on the dock here, if some one will keep an eye on it for a while till I can get something else. Glad you told me. I don’t want to be a bad weather man my first cruise.”
“Thank you,” said the boatswain with equal politeness; “I guess you and I’ll get along all right.” Then he turned suddenly to the crew, who were loitering and gazing uneasily at the black bag.
“’Vast gawking there, and bend on to that dunnage. Whoop, now! Get her up here! Heave her up, boys, lively now; the gale’s gone down. That’s the new supercargo, and you don’t want to go cutting up any monkeyshines with him. He’s going to leave the hard-luck poke-sack ashore.”
“I’ve got a trunk over at the station, too,” said Harry, as they went down the companion-way aft. “Do you suppose they’ll mind if I bring that aboard?”
“Well,” said Joe, “they’re superstitious about trunks, too, although they don’t care so much about them as they do about a black bag. That’s a special hoodoo.”