Twixt Land and Sea Tales | Page 4

a gleam, as if ignorant of his voice. As you may imagine I opened my ears very wide. Every word was precious. My ideas as to the value of business friendship were being favourably modified. He gave me the names of all the disponible ships together with their tonnage and the names of their commanders. From that, which was still commercial information, he condescended to mere harbour gossip. The Hilda had unaccountably lost her figurehead in the Bay of Bengal, and her captain was greatly affected by this. He and the ship had been getting on in years together and the old gentleman imagined this strange event to be the forerunner of his own early dissolution. The Stella had experienced awful weather off the Cape--had her decks swept, and the chief officer washed overboard. And only a few hours before reaching port the baby died.
Poor Captain H- and his wife were terribly cut up. If they had only been able to bring it into port alive it could have been probably saved; but the wind failed them for the last week or so, light breezes, and . . . the baby was going to be buried this afternoon. He supposed I would attend--
"Do you think I ought to?" I asked, shrinkingly.
He thought so, decidedly. It would be greatly appreciated. All the captains in the harbour were going to attend. Poor Mrs. H- was quite prostrated. Pretty hard on H- altogether.
"And you, Captain--you are not married I suppose?"
"No, I am not married," I said. "Neither married nor even engaged."
Mentally I thanked my stars; and while he smiled in a musing, dreamy fashion, I expressed my acknowledgments for his visit and for the interesting business information he had been good enough to impart to me. But I said nothing of my wonder thereat.
"Of course, I would have made a point of calling on you in a day or two," I concluded.
He raised his eyelids distinctly at me, and somehow managed to look rather more sleepy than before.
"In accordance with my owners' instructions," I explained. "You have had their letter, of course?"
By that time he had raised his eyebrows too but without any particular emotion. On the contrary he struck me then as absolutely imperturbable.
"Oh! You must be thinking of my brother."
It was for me, then, to say "Oh!" But I hope that no more than civil surprise appeared in my voice when I asked him to what, then, I owed the pleasure. . . . He was reaching for an inside pocket leisurely.
"My brother's a very different person. But I am well known in this part of the world. You've probably heard--"
I took a card he extended to me. A thick business card, as I lived! Alfred Jacobus--the other was Ernest--dealer in every description of ship's stores! Provisions salt and fresh, oils, paints, rope, canvas, etc., etc. Ships in harbour victualled by contract on moderate terms--
"I've never heard of you," I said brusquely.
His low-pitched assurance did not abandon him.
"You will be very well satisfied," he breathed out quietly.
I was not placated. I had the sense of having been circumvented somehow. Yet I had deceived myself--if there was any deception. But the confounded cheek of inviting himself to breakfast was enough to deceive any one. And the thought struck me: Why! The fellow had provided all these eatables himself in the way of business. I said:
"You must have got up mighty early this morning."
He admitted with simplicity that he was on the quay before six o'clock waiting for my ship to come in. He gave me the impression that it would be impossible to get rid of him now.
"If you think we are going to live on that scale," I said, looking at the table with an irritated eye, "you are jolly well mistaken."
"You'll find it all right, Captain. I quite understand."
Nothing could disturb his equanimity. I felt dissatisfied, but I could not very well fly out at him. He had told me many useful things--and besides he was the brother of that wealthy merchant. That seemed queer enough.
I rose and told him curtly that I must now go ashore. At once he offered the use of his boat for all the time of my stay in port.
"I only make a nominal charge," he continued equably. "My man remains all day at the landing-steps. You have only to blow a whistle when you want the boat."
And, standing aside at every doorway to let me go through first, he carried me off in his custody after all. As we crossed the quarter-deck two shabby individuals stepped forward and in mournful silence offered me business cards which I took from them without a word under his heavy eye. It was a useless and gloomy ceremony. They were the touts of the other ship-chandlers, and he