Part 39

The conversation was interrupted by the entrance of Captain Fazackerly, of the schooner Sarah Ann, who, having just brought up in the river, had hastened to the office to report.

“Mornin’, sir,” said the captain respectfully; “I’m glad to see you here, sir, but the office don’t seem real-like without your father sitting in it. He was a good master, and we’re all sorry to lose him.”

“You’re very good,” said the new master somewhat awkwardly.

“I expect it’ll take some time for you to get into the way of it,” said the captain, with a view to giving the conversation a more cheerful turn.

“I expect it will,” said the new master, thinking of the starfish.

“It’s a mercy Simmons wasn’t took too,” said the captain, shaking his head. “As it is, he’s spared; he’ll be able to teach you. There ain’t”—he lowered his voice, not wishing to make Simmons unduly proud—“there ain’t a smarter clerk in all Liverpool than wot he is.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” said the new master, regarding the old man with raised eyebrows, as he extricated a plethoric-looking canvas bag from his jacket pocket and dropped it with a musical crash on the chipped office table. His eyebrows went still higher, as the old man unfastened the string, and emptying the contents on to the table, knitted his brows into reflective wrinkles, and began to debit the firm with all the liabilities of a slow but tenacious memory.

“Oh, come,” said the owner sharply, as the old man lovingly hooked out the sum of five-and sixpence as a first instalment, “this won’t do, cap’n.”

“Wot won’t do, Mas’r Edward?” inquired the old man in surprise.

“Why, this way of doing business,” said the other. “It’s not businesslike at all, you know.”

“Well, it’s the way me an’ your pore old father has done it this last thirty year,” said the skipper, “an’ I’m sure I’ve never knowingly cheated him out of a ha’penny; and a better man o’ business than your father never breathed.”

“Yes; well, I’m going to do things a bit differently,” said the new master. “You must give me a proper disbursement sheet, cap’n, if you please.”

“And what may that be?” inquired Captain Fazackerly, as with great slowness he gathered up the money and replaced it in the bag; “I never heard of it afore.”

“Well, I haven’t got time to teach you book-keeping,” said the other, somewhat nettled at the old man’s manner. “Can’t you get some of your brother captains to show you? Some deep-sea man would be sure to know.”

“I’ll see what I can do, sir,” said the skipper slowly, as he turned towards the door. “My word was always good enough for your father.”

In a moody, indignant frame of mind he stuck his hands furiously in his trousers’ pockets, and passed heavily through the swing-doors. At other times he had been wont to take a genial, if heavy interest in passing events; but, in this instance, he plodded on, dwelling darkly upon his grievance, until he reached, by the mere force of habit, a certain favourite tavern. He pulled up sharply, and, as a mere matter of duty and custom, and not because he wanted it, went in and ordered a glass of gin.

He drank three, and was so hazy in his replies to the young lady behind the bar, usually a prime favourite, that she took offence, and availing herself, for private reasons, of a public weapon, coldly declined to serve him with a fourth.

“Wot?” said the astounded Fazackerly, coming out of his haze.

“You’ve had enough!” said the girl firmly. “You get aboard again, and mind how you do so.”

The skipper gazed at her for a moment in open-mouthed horror, and then jamming his hat firmly over his brows, stumbled out of the door and into the street, where he ran full into the arms of another mariner who was just entering.

“Why, Zacky, my boy,” cried the latter, clapping him lustily on the back, “how goes it?”

In broken, indignant accents the other told him.

“You come in with me,” said the new-comer.

“I’ll never enter that pub again,” said the skipper.

“You come in with me,” said the master-mind firmly.

Captain Fazackerly hesitated a moment, and then, feeling that he was safe in the hands of the master of a foreign-going barque, followed him into the bar, and from behind his back glared defiantly at his fair foe.

“Two glasses o’ gin, my dear,” said Captain Tweedie with the slightest possible emphasis.

The girl, who knew her customer, served him without a murmur, deftly avoiding the gaze of ungenerous triumph with which the injured captain favoured her as he raised the cooling beverage to his lips. The glass emptied, he placed it on the counter and sighed despondently.