All day Tom stood amid grease and steam, bustle and blasphemy, checking off the cargo, and looking to its conveyance to the warehouses.  At one o’clock there was a break of an hour for dinner, and then the work went on until six, when all hands struck and went off to their homes or to the public-house according to inclination.  Tom and the mate, both fairly tired by their day’s work, prepared to accept the captain’s invitation, and to meet him up in his quarters.  The mate dived down into his cabin, and soon reappeared with his face shining and his long hair combed into some sort of order.

“I’ve been performing my ablutions,” he said, rolling out the last word with great emphasis and pomposity, for, like many Scotchmen, he had the greatest possible reverence for a sonorous polysyllable.  Indeed, in McPherson, this national foible was pushed to excess, for, however inappropriate the word, he never hesitated to drag it into his conversation if he thought it would aid in the general effect.

“The captain,” he continued, “has been far from salubrious this voyage.  He’s aye complainin’ o’ his bodily infirmities.”

“Hypochondriacal, perhaps,” Tom remarked.

The Scotchman looked at his companion with a great accession of respect.  “My certie!” he cried.  “That’s the best I’ve heard since a word that Jimmy M’Gee, of the Corisco, said the voyage afore last.  Would you kindly arteeculate it again.”

“Hypochondriacal,” said Tom laughing heartily.

“Hypo-chon-driacal,” the mate repeated slowly.  “I shouldn’t think Jimmy M’Gee kens that, or he’d ha’ communicated it to me.  I shall certainly utilize it, and am obleeged to you for namin’ it.”

“Don’t mention it,” said Tom.  “I’ll let you have as many long words as you like, if you are a collector of them.  But what is the matter with the captain?”

“It’s aye the drink,” the mate said gravely.  “I can tak’ my modicum mysel’ and enjoy it, but that’s no the same as for a man to lock himself up in his cabin, and drink rum steady on from four bells in the mornin’ watch to eight bells in the evenin’.  And then the cussin’, and prayin’, and swearin’ as he sets up is just awfu’.  It’s what might weel be described as pandemoniacal.”

“Is he often like that, then?” Tom asked.

“Often!  Why, he’s never anything else, sir.  And yet he’s a good seaman too, and however fu’ he may be, he keeps some form o’ reckoning, and never vera far oot either.  He’s an ambeequosity to me, sir, for if I took a tithe o’ the amount I’d be clean daft.”

“He must be dangerous when he is like that?” Tom remarked.

“He is that.  He emptied a sax-shooter down the deck last bout he had, and nigh perforated the carpenter.  Another time he scoots after the cook—­chased him with a handspike in his hand right up the rigging to the cross-trees.  If the cook hadn’t slid down the backstay of the mast, he’d ha’ been obeetuarised.”