"You're like some bally old woman," began Mr. Spokesly, "with your nag, nag, nag. I don't wonder that Maltee mate used to go for you."
"Ask the man at the wheel what course he was steering," repeated the captain distinctly, coming back out of the gloom and wheeling away again.
"I'll be going for you myself before this trip is over," added the mate.
"And then kindly leave the bridge," concluded the captain, reappearing once more, as though emerging suddenly from the wings of a theatre and declaiming a speech in a play. Having declaimed it, however, he retreated with singular precipitancy.
"I must say, I've been with a few commanders in my time," Mr. Spokesly began in a general way. He heard his captain's voice out of the dark opining that he had no doubt every one of those commanders was glad enough to get rid of him. He could easily believe that.
"Perhaps they were," agreed Mr. Spokesly. "Perhaps they were. The point is, even supposing that was the case, they never made me want to throw them over the side."
The voice came out of the darkness again, commenting upon Mr. Spokesly's extreme forbearance.
The voice said all Mr. Spokesly had to do was remove himself and come on the bridge when he was sent for. No driving was intended.
"Ah, you talk very well, captain. I'm only wondering whether you'll talk half so well at the Inquiry."
The voice asked, what inquiry? with a titter.
"There's always an inquiry, somewhere, sometime," said Mr. Spokesly, dully, wondering what he himself would have to say, for that matter. He heard the voice enunciate with a certain lisping exactitude, "Not yet."
"Oh, no, not yet. When the war's won, let's say," he replied. This seemed such a convenient substitute for "never," that he was not surprised to get no answer save a sound like "Tchah!"
"The fog's lifting," he remarked absently. It was. He could already see a number of stars above his head through the thinning vapour. "I'll leave you," he added, "must get some sleep. However," he went on, "we'll have another look at the bilges. I got a certificate to lose as well as you--if you've got one."
The captain remained in obscurity, and made no reply.
"I mean, if you haven't had it endorsed, or suspended, or any little thing like that."