, pointing to some sails coming up
rapidly behind us. "What's this? I thought we'd got the fastest boat in
the harbour."

"It's the _Susan B.,_ sponger," said the Captain.

The Captain was a man of few words.

The _Susan B._ was a rakish-looking craft with a black hull, and she
certainly could sail. It made me feel ashamed to watch how quickly she
was overhauling us, and, as she finally came abreast and then passed us,
it seemed to me that in the usual salutations exchanged between us there
was mingled some sarcastic laughter; no doubt it was pure imagination,
but I certainly did fancy that I noticed our passenger signal to them in
a peculiar way.

I confess that his presence was beginning to get on my nerves, and I was
ready to get "edgy" at anything or nothing--an irritated state of mind
which I presently took out on George the engineer, who did not belie his
hulking appearance, and who was for ever letting the engine stop, and
taking for ever to get it going again. One could almost have sworn he
did it on purpose.

My language was more forcible than classical--had quite a piratical
flavour, in fact; and my friend of "the wonderful works of God" looked
up with a deprecating air. Its effect on George was nil, except perhaps
to further deepen his sulks.

And this I did notice, after a while, that my remarks to George seemed
to have set up a certain sympathetic acquaintance between him and my
passenger, the shackly deck-hand being apparently taken in as a humble
third. They sat for'ard, talking together, and my passenger read to
them, on one occasion, from a piece of printed paper that fluttered in
the wind. They listened with fallen lower jaws and occasional attempts
to seem intelligent.

The Captain was occupied with his helm, and the thoughts he didn't seem
to feel the necessity of sharing; a quiet, poised, probably stupid man,
for whom I could not deny the respect we must always give to content,
however simple. His hand was on the wheel, his eyes on the sails and the
horizon, and, though I was but a yard away from him, you would have said
I was not there at all, judging by his face. In fact, you would have
said that he was all alone on the ship, with nothing to think of but her
and the sea. He was a sailor, and I don't know what better to say of a
man.

So for companionship I was thrown back upon Tom. I felt, too, that he
was my only friend on board, and a vague feeling had come over me that,
within the ne