"I don't understand that Kipping," he said sadly. "I've tried to use him
right. I've done everything I can to help him out and I'm sure I don't want
to quarrel with him, yet for all he goes around as meek as a cat that's
been in the cream, he's always pecking at me and pestering me, till just
now I was fair drove to give him a smart larrup."
Why, indeed, should Kipping or any one else molest good, dull old Bill
Hayden?
"I'm a family man, I am," Bill continued, "with a little girl at home. I
ain't a-bothering no one. I'm sure all I want is to be left alone."
For a time we sat in silence, watching the succession of blue waves through
which the Island Princess cut her swift and almost silent passage. A man
must have been a cowardly bully to annoy harmless old Bill. Yet even then,
young though I was, I realized that sometimes there is no more dangerous
man than a coward and a bully, "He's great friends with the second mate,"
Bill remarked at last. "And the second mate has got no use at all for Mr.
Thomas because he thought he was going to get Mr. Thomas's berth and
didn't; and for the same reason he don't like the captain. Well, I'm glad
he's only _second mate_. He ain't got his hands out of the tar-bucket yet,
my boy.
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