“We shall have him standing on his head, too,” said Mrs. Church, with a bright smile; “you’re turning everything upside down, Mrs. Banks.” “There’s things as wants altering,” said the old lady, with emphasis. “There’s few things as I don’t see, ma’am.” “I hope you’ll live to see a lot more,” said Mrs. Church, piously. “She’ll live to be ninety,” said Captain Barber, heartily. “Oh, _easily_,” said Mrs. Church. Captain Barber regarding his old friend saw her face suffused with a wrath for which he was utterly unable to account. With a hazy idea that something had passed which he had not heard, he caused a diversion by sending Mrs. Church indoors for a pack of cards, and solemnly celebrated the occasion with a game of whist, at which Mrs. Church, in partnership with Mrs. Banks, either through sheer wilfulness or absence of mind, contrived to lose every game. CHAPTER VI. As a result of the mate’s ill-behaviour at the theatre, Captain Fred Flower treated him with an air of chilly disdain, ignoring, as far as circumstances would permit, the fact that such a person existed. So far as the social side went the mate made no demur, but it was a different matter when the skipper acted as though he were not present at the breakfast table, and being chary of interfering with the other’s self-imposed vow of silence, he rescued a couple of rashers from his plate and put them on his own. Also, in order to put matters on a more equal footing, he drank three cups of coffee in rapid succession, leaving the skipper to his own reflections and an empty coffee-pot. In this sociable fashion they got through most of the day, the skipper refraining from speech until late in the afternoon, when, both being at work in the hold, the mate let a heavy case fall on his foot. “I thought you’d get it,” he said, calmly, as Flower paused to take breath; “it wasn’t my fault.” “Whose was it, then?” roared Flower, who had got his boot off and was trying various tender experiments with his toe to see whether it was broken or not. “If you hadn’t been holding your head in the air and pretending that I wasn’t here, it wouldn’t have happened,” said Fraser, with some heat. The skipper turned his back on him, and meeting a look of enquiring solicitude from Joe, applied to him for advice. “What had I better do with it?” he asked. “Well, if it was my toe, sir,” said Joe regarding it respectfully, “I should stick it in a basin o’ boiling water and keep it there as long as I could bear it.” “You’re a fool,” said the skipper, briefly. “What do you think of it, Ben? I don’t think it’s broken.” The old seaman scratched his head. “Well, if it belonged to me,” he said, slowly, “there’s some ointment down the fo’c’s’le which the cook ’ad for sore eyes. I should just put some o’ that on. It looks good stuff.”