'That's a fine schooner of yourn,' said Mr. Prunes to Mr. Tweed. 'It's like having the Wight aboard to see her. Bound to the Equator, eh? And what are you going to load there?'
He pulled his long goatee, with a laugh that struck a shudder through his cap.
'This seems a pretty comfortable old barkey,' said Tweed, slowly looking round him. 'Eighty days in finding your way here? Well, yer might have done worse,' he added, with a look aloft. 'Doomed if I could keep my face when I saw your skipper! It isn't that all that's becoming in a female don't unite in her; it's her sex that makes me laugh.'
'I shall be blamed glad when the voyage is ended,' said Prunes, pulling off his cap, and wiping his forehead with it; and now Mr. Tweed was not a little astonished to remark that this seaman wore his hair in a net. 'I signed more for a lark than for a berth. They told me that the _Wife's Hope_ was in want of a chief mate. She was in Calcutta, and I hadn't been long out of 'orspital. I knew she was commanded by a woman, and reckoned upon being treated as captain, in fact, though _she_ might call herself the old man. Never was a chap more mistaken. If she hasn't held her own as master of this vessel from the moment the pilot left us, I'll swallow that pipe.'
'D'ye tell me she understands all about the manoeuvring of a ship?' said Tweed.
'There's no man out of the Thames or Mersey who's got a trick above her, blow high, blow low, bet all you're a-going to take up!' exclaimed Prunes. 'See her put this craft about! It's yachting for nice discernment. I never knew any master keep his weather-eye lifting as this female do. She can smell what's coming along. She's reefed down when the sky's been blue as it is, all hands have been growling and laughing at her, and a quarter of an hour later the barque's been on her beam-ends, and the sea just one yell o' froth!'
'Doomed if it 'ud be a believable thing, if it couldn't be seen,' said Tweed. 'What made t'other mate leave the ship?'
'The same as'll make me glad to get to New York,' answered Mr. Prunes, putting on his cap, and caressing the tassel, whilst his eyes met in a squint of earnestness in the grog-flowered countenance of Mr. Tweed. He paused, and seemed to reflect.