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A day or two later the loft of the sail-maker, instead of the shed of the boat-builder, happened to be my lounging place, and thinking of this theme, now uppermost in my mind, I said to him: "Do you know a man around here by the name of Charlie Potter?" "Well, I might say that I do. He lived here for over fifteen years." "What sort of a man is he?"
The next I know, I was down the booby-ladder and reeling dizzily about the big after-room as the sulphur fumes bit my lungs and strangled me. By the dim light of a sea-lantern I saw the old steward, on hands and knees, coughing and gasping, the while he shook awake Yatsuda, the first sail- maker. Uchino, the second sail-maker, still strangled in his sleep.
Lord Edward was a sailor every inch of him: he knew a ship from stem to stern, understood the characters of seamen, and gained their confidence. He was, besides, a good mechanic a carpenter, rope-maker, sail-maker, and cooper. He could hand, reef, and steer, knot and splice; but he was no orator: he read little, and spoke less. He was a man of no show.
"I'm not short now. I'm flush, for which I thank Don John," said the sail-maker, as he placed two of the fifty-dollar bills on the desk, at which the captain was writing the receipt. The uppermost of the two bills was the mended one, for Leach thought if there was any doubt in regard to this, it ought to be known at once. If the nabob would take it, the matter was settled.
Haxell, the carpenter, he said, was a quiet, steady-going, solemn sort of man, with no nonsense about him, who kept himself to himself; while Sails, the sail-maker, whom I have omitted mentioning in his proper place as one of the officers ranking after the boatswain, was a cheery chap, who could sing a good song on Saturday night in the fo'c's'le; but, the life of the crew, Jorrocks said, was Pat Doolan, the cook, an Irishman, as his name would imply.
"It's like a flag is it?" added the sail-maker, who did not understand the rich man's allusion. "Like the flag of Denmark. I made a voyage to Copenhagen once, and this bill reminds me of the merchant's flag, which has a couple of white bars across a red ground. Where did you say you got this bill, Mr. Leach?" "Don John gave it to me, not half an hour ago."
In fact, I like to pay up as soon as the work is done," replied Donald, as he handed the sail-maker three of the fifty-dollar bills, which was the price agreed upon for the sails, five in number. Leach looked carefully at each of the bills. All of them were quite new and fresh, and one was peculiar enough to attract the attention of any one through whose hands it might pass.
The sail-maker pretended to mount up out of the sea, climbing over the forecastle head just as if he had left his car of enormous, pearl-tinted sea-shell, with the spouting dolphins still hitched to it, waiting for him, while he paid his respects to our captain.
In this congregation he was still comfortably at rest when I knew him. "All sensitiveness," the sail-maker had concluded after his long account. "There ain't anything the matter with Elihu, except that he's piqued and grieved. He wanted to be the big man, and he wasn't."
"No sooner I thinks that, than down I goes to the forepeak, where I found me rope all right; and thin, thin and there, boys, I unreaves the strands, making it all into spun yarn you know, I s'pose, as how I'm a sail-maker by rights, like Sails here, and not a reg'ler cook?" "The deuce you are!" ejaculated Sails; "you never told us that before." "No fear," replied Pat.
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