latter piece of gossip was, indeed, all over the ship; but this allusion to it struck me as foolishly irrelevant and frivolous. As to the other matter, I suggested that the officers would have had more to say about it than Ready, if there had been anything in it.
“Officers be damned!” cried our consumptive, with a sound man’s vigor. “They’re ordinary seamen dressed up; I don’t believe they’ve a second mate’s certificate between them, and they’re frightened out of their souls.”
“Well, anyhow, the
the epithets employed in her hearing, and towards an invalid, by the irate skipper. But I ask her to make allowances for a rough, uneducated man, rather clumsily touched upon his tender spot. I shall conciliate her presently; the divine pout (so childish it was!) is fading from her lips; the starlight