that of wheedling and slavish
"shoe-scraping," as Tom Aldridge termed it; but in both instances he
generally succeeded in carrying his point, and arranging things in the
manner he had previously made up his mind to.

Now, with eight strange hands, and those foreigners, who had lately come
on board, any reasonable person would have naturally divided them four
and four in each watch, thus mixing them up with the eight English able
seamen left of the _Muscadine's_ original crew; but no, Mr Tompkins was
of a different opinion, and what was more, carried round Captain Harding
to his way of thinking, much to Tom and Charley's surprise. It was not
on account of the new first mate having any ulterior designs on the ship
or cargo--that idea may be dismissed at once, for he neither had the
villainy nor pluck for such a proceeding. His real object was, that
these new men were all fresh to the vessel and had not yet any
experience of his persuasive ways; unlike the old hands, who knew Mr
Tompkins so well that they hated him and shirked work when he was to the
fore--and by getting them all into his watch matters would be able to go
easy with him, and he would be able to astonish everybody by the way in
which he got the duty done when he had charge of the ship, instead of
having to call on the assistance of the skipper when his orders were not
obeyed, as had frequently been the case before.

He did not tell Captain Harding this, however. His explanation of the
proposed plan was, that the men, being all Greeks, would work better
together, as they had already shown when making sail; and, as he
understood Lingua Franca, which all foreign sailors can speak, he could
manage them better than "such a boy as young Aldridge," who might get
along well enough with the old hands who knew him, but would be
powerless to exercise any authority over those foreigners, who wanted a
man to drill them.

"Very well, Tompkins," said Captain Harding, when the first mate had
well-nigh deluged him with his reasons. "I suppose you know best; and
as you've got to see to the working of the ship you can have your own
way, though what you can see to prefer those ill-looking beggars to
decent British tars I'm sure I can't understand. I'm glad you're not
afraid of them, at any rate?"

"Afraid, sir!" repeated Tompkins scornfully, with any amount of
braggadocia. "These foreigners only want you to let them see you are
master, and they're tame enough. It is