tic sort of
tinge to the ship, I suppose. As I say, I didn't know what had been
happening in my brother's life of late and I had no great desire to
know. Whatever he had done did not prevent him looking after his work.
The Second was quite disturbed over the indefatigable way 'that new
mess-man' tidied up his room. It was what the newspapers call 'an Augean
task,' for the Second was not very neat in his habits. Boots, matches,
cigarette-ends, pieces of waste, dirty boiler-suits and torn newspapers
and magazines all over the floor. He never would put away his
shore-clothes until we'd been at sea a week or two, and he kept a good
many small tools under his mattress. Sailor fashion, you know. He had an
electric fan, which for want of screws had tumbled into his wash-basin
and cracked it. 'That new mess-man' had taken the fan away and jiggered
with it until it ran as sweet as ever, and he'd got some cement and
fixed the basin, and made a fine job of it! This was the Second telling
me all about it. And he thought this paragon was a lord. He seemed to
think a lord was an ingenious kind of plumber.

"Of course, as I've tried to explain to you shore folks, I stood too
far above the common gossip of the ship to hear everything. Only now and
again I was made to realize that my brother was still the same
fascinating illusionist. It is a great gift. Don't think I'm not
appreciative of it. Indeed, I envied him his power of mixing, as they
say, his knack of 'setting the table in a roar.' A great gift! Once,
coming along past the galley, where he was talking to a little crowd of
cooks and scullions and cattlemen, I saw the bent heads, the eager,
sparkling eyes, the parted lips, hanging expectantly on his every word.
And, when the joke came, the quick rush of breath, the slapping of
thighs, the explosions of laughter, the barks of the cattlemen and the
high windy cackle of the young fellows. Gift? It is one of the gifts of
the gods, I think. And one night, coming down the port alleyway from the
chief mate's room, I passed my brother's quarters. There was a ragged
curtain across the doorway, and as I passed in my rubber-soled shoes I
caught a glimpse through a rent in the fabric. Three young chaps, the
second-cabin steward and the two apprentices, were sitting on the
settee, their eyes rapt, their mouths open. The Third Mate, an officer,
of all the people in the world, was leaning against the wash-stand, his
hands in his pockets, his ey