“Your wot? demanded the friend hotly.

“My friend,” repeated the other gently; “and as to tenth-rate prize-fighters, George, the ‘Battersea Bruiser’ might be champion of England, if he’d only take the trouble to train.”

“Oh, you’re always sticking up for him,” said the artful mate.

“He deserves it,” said the skipper warmly.  “He’s always run straight, ’as Bill Simmons, and when I hear ’im being talked at like that, it makes me go ’ot all over.”

“Don’t you take the trouble to go ’ot all over on my account,” said the “Bruiser” politely.

“I can’t help my feelings, Bill,” said the skipper softly.

“And don’t you call me Bill,” roared the “Bruiser” with sudden ferocity.  “D’ye think I mind what you and your little tinpot crew say.  You wait till we get ashore, my friend, and the mate too.  Both of you wait!”

He turned his back on them and walked off to the galley, from which, with a view of giving them an object-lesson of an entertaining kind, he presently emerged with a small sack of potatoes, which he slung from the boom and used as a punching ball, dealing blows which made the master of the Frolic sick with apprehension.

“It’s no good,” he said to the mate; “kindness is thrown away on that man.”

“Well, if he hits one, he’s got to hit the lot,” said the mate.  “We’ll all stand by you.”

“I can’t always have the crew follering me about,” said the skipper dejectedly.  “No, he’ll wait his opportunity, and, after he’s broke my head, he’ll go ’ome and break up my wife’s ’art.”

“She won’t break ’er ’art,” said the mate confidently.  “She and you’ll have a rough time of it; p’raps it would be better for you if she did break it a bit, but she’s not that sort of woman.  Well, those of us as live longest’ll see the most.”

For the remainder of that day the cook maintained a sort of unnatural calm.  The Frolic rose and fell on the seas like a cork, and the “Bruiser” took short unpremeditated little runs about the deck, which aggravated him exceedingly.  Between the runs he folded his arms on the side, and languidly cursed the sea and all that belonged to it; and finally, having lost all desire for food himself, went below and turned in.

He stayed in his bunk the whole of the next day and night, awaking early the following morning to the pleasant fact that the motion had ceased, and that the sides and floor of the fo’c’sle were in the places where people of regular habits would expect to find them.  The other bunks were empty, and, after a toilet hastened by a yearning for nourishment, he ran up on deck.

Day had just broken, and he found to his surprise that the voyage was over, and the schooner in a small harbour, lying alongside a stone quay.  A few unloaded trucks stood on a railway line which ran from the harbour to the town clustered behind it, but there was no sign of work or life; the good people of the place evidently being comfortably in their beds, and in no hurry to quit them.