He took up the apple, and was about to
offer it to me, but set it back slowly on the plate, and locked the
cupboard again. "Good Lord!" he repeated quietly, and, linking his
hands under his coat-tails, strode twice backwards and forwards
across the room.
Captain Coffin looked up from his charts and stared at him, and I,
too, stared, waiting in the semi-darkness beyond the lamp's circle.
"Good Lord!" said Captain Branscome for the third time. "And it's
Saturday, too! You'll excuse me a moment."
With that he caught up the letter, and made a dart up the wooden
staircase, which led straight from a corner of the room through a
square hole in the ceiling to his upper chamber.
"Money again!" said Captain Coffin, turning his eyes upon me and
blinking. "Nothing like money!"
He picked up a pair of compasses, spread them out on the paper of
figures before him, and looked up again with a sly, silly smile.
"You won't guess what I'm doing?" he challenged.
"No."
"I'm studyin' navigation. Cap'n Branscome's larnin' it to me. Some
people has luck an' some has heads; an' with a head on my shoulders
same as I had at your age, I'd be Prime Minister an' Lord Mayor of
Lunnon rolled into one, by crum!" He reached across for Captain
Branscome's sextant, and held it between his shaking hands.
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