"--"Now, Creighton," he pursued the unenvious train of thought,
"quite a gentleman... swell friends... will get on. Fine young fellow...
a little more experience." He got up and shook himself. "I'll be back
first thing to-morrow morning for the hatches. Don't you let them touch
anything before I come, shipkeeper," he called out. Then, at last, he
also went ashore--a model chief mate!
The men scattered by the dissolving contact of the land came together
once more in the shipping office.---"The _Narcissus_ pays off," shouted
outside a glazed door a brass-bound old fellow with a crown and the
capitals B. T. on his cap. A lot trooped in at once but many were late.
The room was large, white-washed, and bare; a counter surmounted by a
brass-wire grating fenced off a third of the dusty space, and behind the
grating a pasty-faced clerk, with his hair parted in the middle, had
the quick, glittering eyes and the vivacious, jerky movements of a caged
bird. Poor Captain Allistoun also in there, and sitting before a little
table with piles of gold and notes on it, appeared subdued by his
captivity. Another Board of Trade bird was perching on a high stool near
the door: an old bird that did not mind the chaff of elated sailors.
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