take his competency for granted.

There can be nothing more reassuring to a young man tackling his life's
work for the first time. Mr. Powell, his mind at ease about himself, had
time to observe the people around with friendly interest. Very early in
the beginning of the passage, he had discovered with some amusement that
the marriage of Captain Anthony was resented by those to whom Powell
(conscious of being looked upon as something of an outsider) referred in
his mind as 'the old lot.'

They had the funny, regretful glances, intonations, nods of men who had
seen other, better times. What difference it could have made to the
bo'sun and the carpenter Powell could not very well understand. Yet
these two pulled long faces and even gave hostile glances to the poop.
The cook and the steward might have been more directly concerned. But
the steward used to remark on occasion, 'Oh, she gives no extra trouble,'
with scrupulous fairness of the most gloomy kind. He was rather a silent
man with a great sense of his personal worth which made his speeches
guarded. The cook, a neat man with fair side whiskers, who had been only
three years in the ship, seemed the least concerned. He was even known
to have inquired once or twice as to the success of some of his dishes
with the captain's wife. This was considered a sort of disloyal falling
away from the ruling feeling.

The mate's annoyance was yet the easiest to understand. As he let it out
to Powell before the first week of the passage was over: 'You can't
expect me to be pleased at being chucked out of the saloon as if I
weren't good enough to sit down to meat with that woman.' But he
hastened to add: 'Don't you think I'm blaming the captain. He isn't a
man to be found fault with. You, Mr. Powell, are too young yet to
understand such matters.'

Some considerable time afterwards, at the end of a conversation of that
aggrieved sort, he enlarged a little more by repeating: 'Yes! You are
too young to understand these things. I don't say you haven't plenty of
sense. You are doing very well here. Jolly sight better than I
expected, though I liked your looks from the first.'

It was in the trade-winds, at night, under a velvety, bespangled sky; a
great multitude of stars watching the shadows of the sea gleaming
mysteriously in the wake of the ship; while the leisurely swishing of the
water to leeward was like a drowsy comment on her progress. Mr. Powell
expressed his