Even the cook would have none of me in the galley of an evening;
and Roger in the cabin where no doubt he was fighting his own battles, was
far away from the green hand in the forecastle. I was left to my own
devices and to Bill Hayden.
To a great extent, I suppose, it counted against me that I was the son of a
gentleman. But if I was left alone forward, so Roger, I learned now and
then, was left alone aft.
Continually I puzzled over the complacency of the men. They would nod and
smile and glance at me pityingly, even when I was getting my meat from the
same kids and my tea from the same pot; and chance phrases, which I caught
now and then, added to my uneasiness.
Once old Blodgett, prowling like a cat in the night, was telling how he was
going to "take his money and buy a little place over Ipswich way. There's
nice little places over Ipswich way where a man can settle snug as you
please and buy him a wife and end his days in comfort. We'll go home by way
of India, too, I'll warrant you, and take each of us our handful of round
red rubies. Right's right, but right'll be left--mind what I tell you."
Another time--on the same day, as I now recall it--I overheard the
carpenter saying that he was going to build a brick house in Boston up on
Temple Place.
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