On steamers, of course, we have no yards, and so little items
like spanners and wrenches and three-sheaved blocks fall from aloft. But
that's all right." The pump-man, all the while he was talking, kept
fitting his dies and cutting his threads. "I've got no kick coming. I
came aboard this ship with my eyes open, and I'm keeping 'em open"--he
laughed softly--"so I won't be carried ashore with 'em closed."
Noyes took a close look at the pump-man. The trick of light speech, his
casual manner in speaking of serious things, was not unbecoming, but
this was a more purposeful sort of person than he had reckoned; a more
set man physically, a more serious man morally, than he had thought.
There was more beef to him, too, than ever he guessed; and the face was
less oval, the jaw more heavily hung. The under teeth, biting upward,
were well outside the upper.
"But the bosun--he's altogether too huge," mused Noyes. He threw away
his cigar. "Kieran, you're too good a man to be manhandled by that
brute. You say so, and I'll stop the fight. I've got influence in the
office, and I think I could present the matter to the captain so that he
will pull the bosun off."
"Thank you, Mr. Noyes, but you mustn't. I'd rather get beat to a pulp
than crawl. All I ask is that nobody reaches over and taps me on the
back of the skull with a four-pound hammer or some other useful little
article while I'm busy with him.
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