"Why don't you go an' lay down," said the mate, "an' I'll send you down
a nice cup o' hot tea. You'll get histericks, if you go on like that."
"I'll knock your 'ead off if you talk to me," said the skipper.
"Not you," said the mate cheerfully; "you ain't big enough. Look at that
pore fellow over there."
The skipper looked in the direction indicated, and, swelling with
impotent rage, shook his fist fiercely at a red-faced man with grey
whiskers, who was wafting innumerable tender kisses from the bridge of a
passing steamer.
"That's right," said the mate approvingly; "don't give 'im no
encouragement. Love at first sight ain't worth having."
The skipper, suffering severely from suppressed emotion, went below, and
the crew, after waiting a little while to make sure that he was not
coming up again, made their way quietly to the mate.
"If we can only take him to Battlesea in this rig it'll be all right,"
said the latter. "You chaps stand by me. His slippers and sou'-wester is
the only clothes he's got aboard. Chuck every needle you can lay your
hands on overboard, or else he'll git trying to make a suit out of a
piece of old sail or something. If we can only take him to Mr. Pearson
like this, it won't be so bad after all."
While these arrangements were in hand above, the skipper and the boy
were busy over others below.
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