‘I have been talking about you to the chief mate,’ said he. ‘I have told him that by an accident I have found out who you are. I said your mother’s name was Marlowe, and that your father, in his life, was a client of my father’s. Mr. Bates supposes that your mother married a cousin of her own name. I told him I knew that you were thoroughly respectable, and that you had left your home because your stepfather led you a dog’s life.’
‘What was the good of your telling him all this?’ said I, feeling very angry, though I controlled myself. ‘But I know how it’ll end. You’ll talk and talk till you betray me, and then that odious doctor will take the first opportunity to turn me out of the ship. All that I have suffered and passed through will go for nothing, and I shall lose sight of Tom, and perhaps be separated from him for ever,’ and now I felt as if I must cry.
‘Don’t talk like a fool,’ said Will; ‘I’m not going to betray you. I want to go on helping you as I helped you from the start, but as I ought never to have helped you. How are you going to get any clothes? Think! Don’t talk of the slop-chest. You’re not on the articles. There’ll not be a farthing coming to you. You’ve been searched, and, as you said yourself, it’s out of the question you should produce money now. Will the captain trust a stowaway? Of course not. So there’s no slop-chest so far as you’re concerned. Yet how long d’ye think those clothes of yours are going to hang upon your body, scrubbing and messing about in them as you are all day long? And when wear has turned them into Irish pennants, what are you going to do for a shift of duds? Why, you must come to me, of course. But how can I help you if I don’t know you in some such a way as to justify me in taking an interest in you? Now do you see what I would be at?’ cried he, giving me a soft, playful chuck under the chin.
‘Yes, I understand now. I ask your pardon. You are clever and look ahead.’
‘Well, that’s all right,’ said he; ‘and now I shall be able to give you a shift of linen and to mostly rig you out. Most of what’s in my chest was given to me by you. Nobody can say a word when it’s understood that your father was a client of the old man’s. It’ll raise you in the general esteem, also. So, say what you will, I’ve done you a good turn this blessed night. And now get to bed away out of this filthy yowling. Look how sweetly it rains! And I’ve still three hours to stand!’