The Sea Wolf | Page 6

so men call him. I never heard his other name. But you better
speak soft with him. He is mad this morning. The mate--"
But he did not finish. The cook had glided in.
"Better sling yer 'ook out of 'ere, Yonson," he said. "The old man'll be
wantin' yer on deck, an' this ayn't no d'y to fall foul of 'im."
Johnson turned obediently to the door, at the same time, over the cook's
shoulder, favouring me with an amazingly solemn and portentous wink
as though to emphasize his interrupted remark and the need for me to

be soft-spoken with the captain.
Hanging over the cook's arm was a loose and crumpled array of evil-
looking and sour-smelling garments.
"They was put aw'y wet, sir," he vouchsafed explanation. "But you'll
'ave to make them do till I dry yours out by the fire."
Clinging to the woodwork, staggering with the roll of the ship, and
aided by the cook, I managed to slip into a rough woollen undershirt.
On the instant my flesh was creeping and crawling from the harsh
contact. He noticed my involuntary twitching and grimacing, and
smirked:
"I only 'ope yer don't ever 'ave to get used to such as that in this life,
'cos you've got a bloomin' soft skin, that you 'ave, more like a lydy's
than any I know of. I was bloomin' well sure you was a gentleman as
soon as I set eyes on yer."
I had taken a dislike to him at first, and as he helped to dress me this
dislike increased. There was something repulsive about his touch. I
shrank from his hand; my flesh revolted. And between this and the
smells arising from various pots boiling and bubbling on the galley fire,
I was in haste to get out into the fresh air. Further, there was the need of
seeing the captain about what arrangements could be made for getting
me ashore.
A cheap cotton shirt, with frayed collar and a bosom discoloured with
what I took to be ancient blood-stains, was put on me amid a running
and apologetic fire of comment. A pair of workman's brogans encased
my feet, and for trousers I was furnished with a pair of pale blue,
washed-out overalls, one leg of which was fully ten inches shorter than
the other. The abbreviated leg looked as though the devil had there
clutched for the Cockney's soul and missed the shadow for the
substance.
"And whom have I to thank for this kindness?" I asked, when I stood
completely arrayed, a tiny boy's cap on my head, and for coat a dirty,

striped cotton jacket which ended at the small of my back and the
sleeves of which reached just below my elbows.
The cook drew himself up in a smugly humble fashion, a deprecating
smirk on his face. Out of my experience with stewards on the Atlantic
liners at the end of the voyage, I could have sworn he was waiting for
his tip. From my fuller knowledge of the creature I now know that the
posture was unconscious. An hereditary servility, no doubt, was
responsible.
"Mugridge, sir," he fawned, his effeminate features running into a
greasy smile. "Thomas Mugridge, sir, an' at yer service."
"All right, Thomas," I said. "I shall not forget you--when my clothes
are dry."
A soft light suffused his face and his eyes glistened, as though
somewhere in the deeps of his being his ancestors had quickened and
stirred with dim memories of tips received in former lives.
"Thank you, sir," he said, very gratefully and very humbly indeed.
Precisely in the way that the door slid back, he slid aside, and I stepped
out on deck. I was still weak from my prolonged immersion. A puff of
wind caught me,--and I staggered across the moving deck to a corner of
the cabin, to which I clung for support. The schooner, heeled over far
out from the perpendicular, was bowing and plunging into the long
Pacific roll. If she were heading south-west as Johnson had said, the
wind, then, I calculated, was blowing nearly from the south. The fog
was gone, and in its place the sun sparkled crisply on the surface of the
water, I turned to the east, where I knew California must lie, but could
see nothing save low-lying fog-banks--the same fog, doubtless, that had
brought about the disaster to the Martinez and placed me in my present
situation. To the north, and not far away, a group of naked rocks thrust
above the sea, on one of which I could distinguish a lighthouse. In the
south-west, and almost in our course, I saw the pyramidal loom of
some vessel's sails.

Having completed my survey of the horizon, I turned to my more
immediate surroundings. My