W. W. Jacobs

“ The mate was relieved the next day when he saw the portrait of Towson. He stroked his moustache, and felt that he gained in good looks every time he glanced at it.
Breakfast finished, the skipper, who had been on deck all night, retired to his bunk. The mate went on deck and took charge, watching with great interest the movements of the passenger as she peered into the galley and hotly assailed the cook's method of washing up.
"Don't you like the sea?" he inquired politely, as she came and sat on the cabin skylight.
Miss Alsen shook her head dismally. "I've got to it," she remarked. ”

“ The passenger herself was already at the breakfast-table.
"Cap'n's on deck, I s'pose?" said the mate, preparing to resume negotiations where they were broken off the night before. "I hope you feel better than you did last night."
"Yes, thank you," said she.
"You'll make a good sailor in time," said the mate.
"I hope not," said Miss Alsen, who thought it time to quell a gleam of peculiar tenderness plainly apparent in the mate's eyes. "I shouldn't like to be a sailor even if I were a man." ”

“ Now my friend Towson, he's all right; he's a man of about my own figger."
"She'll marry the clerk," said the mate, with conviction.
"I'll bet you she don't," said the skipper. "I'm an artful man, Jack, an' I, generally speaking, get my own way. I couldn't live with my missus peaceable if it wasn't for management."
The mate smiled safely in the darkness, the skipper's management consisting chiefly of slavish obedience.
"I've got a cabinet fortygraph of him for the cabin mantel-piece, Jack," continued the wily father. ”

“ The skipper laid his finger on his nose, and winked at the mainmast. "There's few can show me the way, Jack," he answered softly; "very few. Now I want you to help me too; I want you to talk to her a great deal."
"Ay, ay," said the mate, winking at the mast in his turn.
"Admire the fortygraph on the mantel-piece," said the skipper.
"I will," said the other.
"Tell her about a lot o' young girls you know as married young middle-aged men, an' loved 'em more an" more every day of their lives," continued the skipper.
"Not another word," said the mate. "I know just what you want. ”

“ An ordinary man would have run down and interrupted them; the master of the Jessica thought he could attain his ends more certainly by diplomacy, and so careful was his demeanour that the couple in the cabin had no idea that they had been observed—the mate listening calmly to a lecture on incipient idiocy which the skipper thought it advisable to bestow. ”

“ It's a plan on our part."
"Wants strengthening?" said the mate suggestively.
"Wall, the fact is," said the skipper, "it's like this, Jack; there's a friend o' mine, a provision dealer in a large way o' business, wants to marry my girl, and me an' the missus want him to marry her, so, o' course, she wants to marry someone else. Me an' 'er mother we put our 'eads together and decided for her to come away. When she's at 'ome, instead o' being out with Towson, direckly her mother's back's turned she's out with that young sprig of a clerk." ”

“ She shan't marry the clerk if I can help it."
The other turned and gripped him warmly by the hand. "If ever you are a father yourself, Jack," he said with emotion, "I hope as how somebody'll stand by you as you're standing by me." ”

“ The longest-living author of this work died in 1943, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 79 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works. ”