“A man before the mast,” said the latter, fortifying his moral courage with whisky, “is a human being.”

“Nobody denies it,” said Captain Nugent, looking round.

One captain agreed with him.

“Why don’t they act like it, then?” demanded the other.

Nugent and the first captain, struck by the re-mark, thought they had perhaps been too hasty in their admission, and waited for number two to continue.  They eyed him with silent encouragement.

“Why don’t they act like it, then?” repeated number two, who, being a man of few ideas, was not disposed to waste them.

Captain Nugent and his friend turned to the harbour-master to see how he would meet this poser.

“They mostly do,” he replied, sturdily.  “Treat a seaman well, and he’ll treat you well.”

This was rank heresy, and moreover seemed to imply something.  Captain Nugent wondered dismally whether life ashore would infect him with the same opinions.

“What about that man of mine who threw a belaying-pin at me?”

The harbour-master quailed at the challenge.  The obvious retort was offensive.

“I shall carry the mark with me to my grave,” added the captain, as a further inducement to him to reply.

“I hope that you’ll carry it a long time,” said the harbour-master, gracefully.

“Here, look here, Hall!” expostulated captain number two, starting up.

“It’s all right, Cooper,” said Nugent.

“It’s all right,” said captain number one, and in a rash moment undertook to explain.  In five minutes he had clouded Captain Cooper’s intellect for the afternoon.

He was still busy with his self-imposed task when a diversion was created by the entrance of a new arrival.  A short, stout man stood for a moment with the handle of the door in his hand, and then came in, carefully bearing before him a glass of gin and water.  It was the first time that he had set foot there, and all understood that by this intrusion Mr. Daniel Kybird sought to place sea-captains and other dignitaries on a footing with the keepers of slop-shops and dealers in old clothes.  In the midst of an impressive silence he set his glass upon the table and, taking a chair, drew a small clay pipe from his pocket.

[Illustration:  “A diversion was created by the entrance of a new arrival.”]

Aghast at the intrusion, the quartette conferred with their eyes, a language which is perhaps only successful in love.  Captain Cooper, who was usually moved to speech by externals, was the first to speak.

“You’ve got a sty coming on your eye, Hall,” he remarked.

“I daresay.”

“If anybody’s got a needle,” said the captain, who loved minor operations.

Nobody heeded him except the harbour-master, and he muttered something about beams and motes, which the captain failed to understand.  The others were glaring darkly at Mr. Kybird, who had taken up a newspaper and was busy perusing it.