other.

It surprised me that Newman ignored this state of affairs among the
stiffs. He could have clapped stoppers on Boston's and Blackie's jaws
by just telling them to shut up. They stood in such awe and fear of
him. He could have as easily silenced Cockney; aye, and the gang, too.
We all stood in awe of him. There wasn't a man forward who would dream
of opposing him openly.

But Newman was contemptuous of stiffs' talk. "Oh, let them blow off
steam," says he. "Big talk, small deeds; that's their caliber, Jack.
They'll have their sauciness hammered out of them quickly enough when
Swope plays his next card."

"Aye, but what if Blackie and Boston, or that Cockney, make trouble?
They are bossing the stiffs."

"Those two jail-birds know what I will do to them if they go beyond
talk," said Newman. "As for that Whitechapel beauty, he is quite
harmless, I think. They would not follow him into a fight; they know
he is scum, like themselves, for all his bluster. They would follow
me, or you, if we led the sailors aft. But so long as the sailors are
quiet, there is no danger. That scum would not fight alone. And, as
you know, our little friend has his Norsemen eating out of his hand."

This last was certainly true. By "our little friend" Newman meant Holy
Joe. The squareheads idolized him. For one thing, his being a parson
gave him, from the beginning, standing with them. They were decent,
simple villagers, with an inbred respect for the cloth. But more
important, was the service he had rendered their dead shipmate. They
were not the men to forget a thing like that, or fail to be impressed
by the fine courage Holy Joe had exhibited when he faced the angry mate.

Now there was a curious thing. The decent men in the crew gave Holy
Joe unstinted admiration; his bravery that day clinched his authority
over the squareheads. They would have done almost anything for him;
aye, they loved the little man, and admired him. Yet the stiffs were
not much impressed by what Holy Joe did to the mate. I guess they
simply couldn't understand it. But Cockney's trying to stick a knife
into the mate's back quite captured their fancy. Aye, that attempted
murder was a great deed; it made Cockney their hero. I won't say that
the rest of us damned Cockney. We were, after all, foc'sle savages,
and our hatred of Fitzgibbon was very bitter. But it took the stiffs
to honor Cockney for that knife-play.

Well, Newman might di