It is your duty, sir, as master of this ship, to put
me on the meanest job you've got."
"My word!" exclaimed Captain Trigger.
"I'm blessed!" said Mr. Mott.
"Up where I've been running things and cock-walking like a foreman
in a shirt-waist factory, I made the rules and I enforced them.
I want to say to you that no favours were shown. If the Prince of
Wales had drifted in there, dead broke, and asked for something
to eat, he would have got it, but you bet your life he'd have had
to work for it. A tramp's a tramp, no matter how much purple he's
been used to, and you can say the same for a stowaway. What's the
matter with me taking the place of one of those deck-hands, or
whatever you call 'em, you lost last night?"
"What's that?"
"Swabbers, maybe you call 'em. Men that mop up the decks after
everybody else has turned in."
"What are you talking about?" demanded the Captain, sitting up very
straight. Percival stared at him in astonishment.
"I thought you knew about it, of course. Good Lord, sir, don't you
know that a couple of your men jumped overboard last night,--or
early this morning, rather? Just as the ship was rounding that big
headland--"
"Good God, man, are you in earnest?" cried Mr.
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