“Good-morning, John Stump,” said Alice, as the sailor lifted his sou’wester and bowed, scraping his right foot as he did so.
“_Jack_ Stump, if it please your pretty lips, miss--for I always feel as though I was turned wrong side out when anybody calls me John. Jack’s the name that I’ve always gone by, ever since I was as big as a turtle.”
“Oh, very well--Jack Stump it shall be, then. You have something particular to say to me, Jack,” she added, as the seaman suddenly placed his forefinger upon the side of his flat nose, while his great blue eyes began to roll in his head.
“Ay, ay,” he said, at last, in a low voice, “I’ve been a-trying to get out, what I wanted to say to you, sweet lass but your beauty choked the words in my throat, as a stick of candy put in the mouth of a baby stops its squalling. Such beauty as yours, miss--”
“That will do, Jack,” interrupted Alice, with a gratified smile, for she was too truthful to pretend that the compliment did not please her; “that will do, and I am much obliged to you. But you have aroused my curiosity, and I would thank you to come to the point at once.”
“Here it goes, then,” said Stump, speaking in a voice of mysterious confidence, “here it goes, sure enough, which is, that I’m a friend to you and the captain, and I wish that everybody in the ship was the same.”
“Why! how is this, Jack? My father’s crew are all friendly to us, are they not?”
“Good grub!” said Stump, in a deep voice, “is the first consideration in a whaler. Good officers the second, and good luck the third. Them are the three things that wins men’s hearts--them are the things that have won mine. But there are some beings that has the shape of men, and yet they ain’t men for all that;--amphibious animals like, that has more of the shark than human natur’ in their corporosities, and believe me, Miss Alice, there are such creatur’s in this bark. Just turn your pretty eyes forward, young lady--sly like, as you women know so well how to do--and look at them five blue-skinned devils standin’ there by the windlass a-whispering and talking together. D’ye see ’em?”
“I do,” replied Alice. “Four New Zealanders and the Portuguese steward; but what of that?”
Stump seized the end of his pigtail with his left fingers, and bringing it over his shoulder, placed his right hand upon it.