“And I wish he would break his neck.  And so can a kangaroo hop around, but you wouldn’t pick a kangaroo to fight a bull buffalo.  You’ll find out the difference, if ever he tackles my bosun.  And no fear my bosun won’t get him.  He’ll get him, you see.  And when they come together I’ll take good care there’s no interruption.”

“But why does the bosun hound him so?  This man was no sooner aboard than the bosun began to crowd him.”

“Did he?  And perhaps you think the bosun of an oil-tanker’s goin’ to hand a man a type-written letter every time he wants to have a word with him.  He’s a good bosun.  He knows his business, and he saves me a lot of trouble.”

And what the captain did not say, but what Noyes imagined he saw in his eye, was:  “And I’ll be telling you pretty soon to keep to yourself your opinion of ship’s matters.”

When Noyes went to his room that night, it was for a stay of two days.  More than a year now since he had been to sea, and the weather passing Hatteras had been bad.  But now it was the fourth day out, and Hatteras was far astern, and the ship was plunging easily southward, with the white sandy shore of Florida abeam.  A fine, fair day it was, with the Caribbean breeze pouring in through the air-port.  The passenger shaved and washed and got into his clothes.  Above him he could hear the captain dressing down somebody.  He stepped out on deck.

It was two sailors who had complained of the grub, and he had made short work of their complaint.  “I’ll give you what grub I please.  And that’s good grub.”  That and more, and drove the two sailors, with their dinners on their tin mess-plates, down to the deck.

Noyes, who remembered that the company allowed fifty cents a day per man for grub, took a look and a whiff of the protested rations as the men went by.  “Phew!” He ascended to the bridge.  The captain turned to him.  “Did you see those two?  Complaining of the grub, mind you.  What do they know of grub?  In the hovels they came from they never saw good grub.”

Noyes made no answer.  He was interested just then in the pump-man, who now came strolling along and presently overtook the protesting sailors.  The better to observe proceedings, Noyes took his station on the chart bridge aft.  “And did you fellows think that any polite game of conversation up on the bridge was going to get you a shift of rations?” the pump-man was saying.  “Don’t you know that what he saves out of the ship’s allowance goes into his own pocket?  What you fellows want to do is to go and scare the cook to death—­or half way to it.  If it’s only for a couple of days, it’ll help.  Here, let’s go back and shake him up.  Besides, we might as well start something to make a fellow smile.  Most morbid packet ever I was in.  You’d think it was a crime to laugh on her.  Come on.”

The galley was a little house by itself on the after deck of the ship.  Noyes saw the pump-man call out the cook, and after a time, their voices rising, he heard, “Now, cookie, no more of that slush.  Mind you, I’m wasting no time talking to the captain.  I’m talking to you.  We know that he slips you a little ten-spot every month for keeping down the grub bills; but even if he does, you’ll have to dig out something better.”