front of him sat Wolf Larsen on one of the pivotal cabin
chairs. An appreciable pause fell after I had closed the doors and drawn
the slide, a pause that must have lasted fully a minute. It was broken
by Wolf Larsen.

"Yonson," he began.

"My name is Johnson, sir," the sailor boldly corrected.

"Well, Johnson, then, damn you! Can you guess why I have sent for you?"

"Yes, and no, sir," was the slow reply. "My work is done well. The mate
knows that, and you know it, sir. So there cannot be any complaint."

"And is that all?" Wolf Larsen queried, his voice soft, and low, and
purring.

"I know you have it in for me," Johnson continued with his unalterable
and ponderous slowness. "You do not like me. You--you--"

"Go on," Wolf Larsen prompted. "Don't be afraid of my feelings."

"I am not afraid," the sailor retorted, a slight angry flush rising
through his sunburn. "If I speak not fast, it is because I have not been
from the old country as long as you. You do not like me because I am too
much of a man; that is why, sir."

"You are too much of a man for ship discipline, if that is what you mean,
and if you know what I mean," was Wolf Larsen's retort.

"I know English, and I know what you mean, sir," Johnson answered, his
flush deepening at the slur on his knowledge of the English language.

"Johnson," Wolf Larsen said, with an air of dismissing all that had gone
before as introductory to the main business in hand, "I understand you're
not quite satisfied with those oilskins?"

"No, I am not. They are no good, sir."

"And you've been shooting off your mouth about them."

"I say what I think, sir," the sailor answered courageously, not failing
at the same time in ship courtesy, which demanded that "sir" be appended
to each speech he made.

It was at this moment that I chanced to glance at Johansen. His big
fists were clenching and unclenching, and his face was positively
fiendish, so malignantly did he look at Johnson. I noticed a black
discoloration, still faintly visible, under Johansen's eye, a mark of the
thrashing he had received a few nights before from the sailor. For the
first time I began to divine that something terrible was about to be
enacted,--what, I could not imagine.

"Do you know what happens to men who say what you've said about my
slop-chest and me?" Wolf Larsen was demanding.

"I know, sir," was the answer.

"What?" Wolf Larsen demanded, sharply and imperatively.

"What