“Indeed and I did, and a dozen times I thought it—and that ’twas a blessed cold kind of a day for a man to be soaking his feet in the ocean.”
“And yet”—the lad in the peak was in commission again—“and yet warn’t it some professor said in that book that somebody was reading out of the other day—warn’t it him said that salt water ain’t nigh so cold as fresh. Is it, Martin?”
“As to that,” answered Martin, “I dunno. But I wish ’twas that professor’s feet, not mine, was astraddle the bottom of that dory—not to wish him any harm—but winter’s day and the wind no’therly I found it cold enough.”
“I went into a Turkish bath parlor in New York one time,” came the conversational voice from the peak, “and hot? My Lord”
“The man,” said the next on watch, taking his mitts from the line above the stove—“the man that’d talk about hot Turkish baths on a night like this to sea—Turkish baths, and Lord in heaven, two good long hours up there” He halted to take a sniff up the companion-way. “Two hours—what ought to be done with the like o’ him?”
The man by the stove, who awhile before had vanquished the lad in the peak, took his pipe long enough from his mouth to observe, “And for four years now to my knowledge he’s been tryin’ to tell how hot ’twas in that Turkish bath.”
“Hit him with a gob-stick,” suggested the cook—“or this rolling-pin”—he was flattening out pie-crust.
“A gob-stick or a rolling-pin,” said the next on watch, “is too good for him. Here, take this,” and passed the cook’s hatchet along the lockers.
The opening and closing of the hatch after the watch had gone on deck admitted a blast of air that made the man in the bunk nearest the steps draw up his legs. The flame in the lamp flared, whereat the original inquirer got up to set the lamp chimney more firmly over the base of the burner, and before he sat down put the question again. What he wanted to know was how Martin felt when he thought he was sure enough going. “The last fifteen or twenty minutes or so I bet you did some thinkin’, didn’t you, Martin?”
“A little,” admitted Martin, and with a long arm gaffed another potato. “Toward the end of it the sea did begin to take on a gray look that I know now was grayer than any mortal sea ever could’ve been.”
“And what were you thinkin’ of then, Martin?”
“What was I thinking of? What—Lord, but these apple dumplings are great stuff, arn’t they? You don’t want to let any of those dumplings get past you, Johnnie. Never mind how used up you feel, come out of your bunk and try ’em. Five or six good plump dumplings inside of you and you’ll forget you ever saw a dory.”
“He’s asleep, Martin.”
“Is he? Well, maybe ’tis just as well. ’Twas a hard drag for poor John to-day. What was I thinking of, you asked me. Well, I’ll tell you what I was thinking of. You know what store I set by a good razor. I’d go a hundred mile for a good razor—a good razor—any time. You all know that, don’t you?”
“Yes—yes”
“Well, this last time out I brought aboard as fine a looking razor as ever a man laid against his face. Oh, I saw you all eying it the last time I took it out. Don’t pretend—I know you. It’s right there in my diddy-box, and before I turn in to-night it’s a good scrape I’m going to give myself with it—yes. Well, when Johnnie’d said ‘Good-by, Martin’—said it for the second time—‘Good-by, Martin, don’t mind me any more—look out for yourself’—said that and I’d said, ‘Hold on a little longer’ to him for about the tenth time—well, about that time, when I did begin to think we were sure enough going—with it coming on dark and no sign of the vessel in sight—then it was I couldn’t help wondering who in hell aboard the vessel was going to get that razor.”
When everybody had done laughing, and after two or three had told how they felt when they were on the bottom of a dory, the persistent one asked again, “Martin, but you must’ve had some close calls in your time?”
“My share—no more.” He was taking a look around the table as he spoke. A lingering, regretful look, and then he gave up any further thought of it. “Ah-h,” he sighed, “but I cert’nly took the good out of that meal,” and leaning against the nearest bunk-board—his own—drew out his pipe