The Skippers Wooing | Page 2

and down the deck; the cook disappeared into the galley, and the two seamen began to bustle about forward. The small expert who had raised the storm, by no means desirous of being caught in the tail of it, put his pipe in his pocket and looked round for a job.
"Come here!" said the mate sternly.
The boy came towards him.
"What was that you were saying about the skipper?" demanded the other.
"I said it wasn't cargo he was after," said Henry.
"Oh, a lot you know about it!" said the mate.
Henry scratched his leg, but said nothing.
"A lot you know about it!" repeated the mate in rather a disappointed tone.
Henry scratched the other leg.
"Don't let me hear you talking about your superior officer's affairs again," said the mate sharply. "Mind that!"
"No, sir," said the boy humbly. "It ain't my business, o; course."
"What isn't your business?" said the mate carelessly. "His," said Henry.
The mate turned away seething, and hearing a chuckle from the galley, went over there and stared at the cook--a wretched being with no control at all over his feelings--for quite five minutes. In that short space of time he discovered that the galley was the dirtiest hole under the sun and the cook the uncleanest person that ever handled food. He imparted his discoveries to the cook, and after reducing him to a state of perspiring imbecility, turned round and rated the men again. Having charged them with insolence when they replied, and with sulkiness when they kept silent, he went below, having secured a complete victory, and the incensed seamen, after making sure that he had no intention of returning, went towards Henry to find fault with him.
"If you was my boy," said Sam, breathing heavily, "I'd thrash you to within a inch of your life."
"If I was your boy I should drown myself," said Henry very positively.
Henry's father had frequently had occasion to remark that his son favored his mother, and his mother possessed a tongue which was famed throughout Wapping, and obtained honorable mention in distant Limehouse.
"You can't expect discipline aboard a ship where the skipper won't let you 'it the boy," said Dick moodily. "It's bad for 'im too."
"Don't you worry about me, my lads," said Henry with offensive patronage. "I can take care of myself all right. You ain't seen me come aboard so drunk that I've tried to get down the foc'sle without shoving the scuttle back. You never knew me to buy a bundle o' forged pawn-tickets. You never--"
"Listen to 'im," said Sam, growing purple; "I'll be 'ung for 'im yet."
"If you ain't, I will," growled Dick, with whom the matter of the pawn-tickets was a sore subject.
"Boy!" yelled the mate, thrusting his head out at the companion.
"Coming, sir!" said Henry. "Sorry I can't stop any longer," he said politely; "but me an' the mate's going to have a little chat."
"I'll have to get another ship," said Dick, watching the small spindly figure as it backed down the companion-ladder. "I never was on a ship afore where the boy could do as he liked."
Sam shook his head and sighed. "It's the best ship I was ever on, barrin' that," he said sternly.
"What'll 'e be like when he grows up?" demanded Dick, as he lost himself in the immensity of the conjecture. "It ain't right t' the boy to let him go on like that. One good hidin' a week would do 'im good and us too."
Meantime the object of their care had reached the cabin, and, leaning against the fireplace, awaited the mate's pleasure.
"Where's the cap'n?" demanded the latter, plunging at once into the subject.
Henry turned and looked at the small clock.
"Walkin' up and down a street in Gravesend," he said deliberately.
"Oh, you've got the second-sight, I s'pose," said the mate reddening. "And what's he doing that for?"
"To see 'er come out," said the boy.
The mate restrained himself, but with difficulty.
"And what'll he do when she does come out?" he demanded.
"Nothin'," replied the seer with conviction. "What are you lookin' for?" he inquired, with a trace of anxiety in his voice, as the mate rose from the locker, and, raising the lid, began groping for something in the depths.
"Bit o' rope," was the reply.
"Well, what did yer ask me for?" said Henry with hasty tearfulness. "It's the truth. 'E won't do nothin'; 'e never does--only stares."
"D'you mean to say you ain't been gammoning me?" demanded the mate, seizing him by the collar.
"Come and see for yourself," said Henry.
The mate released him, and stood eyeing him with a puzzled expression as a thousand-and-one little eccentricities on the part of the skipper suddenly occurred to him.
"Go and make yourself tidy," he said sharply; "and mind if I find you've been doing me I'll flay you alive."
The boy needed no second bidding. He dashed up on