It was different with Mr. Spokesly. If anything happened to Captain Meredith himself, a sudden weight of responsibility would roll upon Mr. Spokesly that would, in the captain's opinion, crush him. For it must be confessed that licenses, diplomas, certificates, or whatever you call your engraved warrants to ply your trade, are no guarantee of character and nerve. Nor does efficiency in a subordinate capacity imply success in command. Just as some men are stormy and intractable nuisances until they reach the top, when they immediately assume a mysterious and impregnable composure, so others deliberately avoid rising above a comfortable mediocrity, conscious of their own limitations and well satisfied that some other human soul should endure the pangs of the supreme decision. Others there are, and Captain Meredith believed Mr. Spokesly was one of them, who lack knowledge of themselves, and who have not sufficient intelligence either to carry the burden or to refuse it.
This, of course, was not Mr. Spokesly's opinion as time went on. On the contrary, he had come to the conclusion that it was no use being a smart officer "if the captain wouldn't back a man up." He told Archy Bates that "the Old Man was doing all he knew to do him dirty." And Archy riposted at once with evidence that he himself was the victim of a foul conspiracy between the Captain and the crew over the grub. Mr. Spokesly would go out on deck from these pow-wows feeling very happy, for Archy never failed to open a bottle. Mr. Spokesly would sway a little as he walked forward to see how the work was going on in the fore-hold. The _Tanganyika_, having discharged most of her cargo, was now reloading a great deal of it in obedience to orders from certain invisible but omnipotent beings higher up. He would sway a little, and hold on to the hatch coaming, looking down upon the toilers below with an air of profound abstraction. Then he would move gently until he could raise his eyes and sweep a casual glance in the direction of the bridge. Sometimes he would see the Old Man's head as he strode to and fro. On one occasion he "caught 'im at it," as he told Archy. "Yes, he was spying on me. Watching me. See his game? I tell you, Archy, it makes a man sick. Fancy havin' to work under a man like that. Watchin' me. Now he'll write home to the owners in his confidential report. Well, let him. Thanks to you, I got more than one egg in the basket. Sometimes, I feel inclined to go and demand my discharge. I would, only it's war time. Got to carry on in war time."