"And much good it was, or would have been," echoed Doherty, "to our hand! It's the hand that matters, not the material. Mr. Steward, give me yours!" "His name is Jewson," remarked Denis; and his heart sank in spite of him as he saw the young hand join the old across the empty plates. "But you called me steward, Mr. Dent, and I like to be called steward," rejoined Jewson, adroitly. "It reminds me of times you may think I'd like to forget; but I wouldn't and shall I tell you why? Because I'd like to make up for 'em, sir, if only you'd give me the chance. I'm out of a job. Wild hosses wouldn't take me back to Captain Devenish. I was only his servant, not a partner, and I'll be your servant, Mr. Dent, and a good one, sir, if you'll give me a trial. Pay me what you like--I ain't partic'lar." And the old rogue lapsed into a living heap of humility; but he had gone just one sentence too far. "I'll pay you well if I take you," said Denis, shortly, as he sipped his tea. Yet even the tea seemed a better brew than they had managed to achieve for themselves. "I don't want you to make up your minds to-night," resumed the steward, reducing the humility a degree or so. "I don't care about hotel work. I certainly shouldn't start work at any of these here shanties on Christmas Day. They have approached me, you understand, through Lieutenant Rackham, who has been kind enough to say a good word for my capabilities. But that's not the kind of place I'd like so well as this. Let me camp outside to-night, and cook your Christmas dinner to-morrow, while you think it over." But Denis said he would prefer to think it over at once, and lit his pipe, and went out to do so then and there, with a troubled face which Jewson could understand and Doherty could not. "He never liked me," said the steward with a sigh. "And it was my fault," he added self-reproachfully. "But if you see that you could soon make him like you." "If he gave me the chance, perhaps." "He shall!" Denis was leaning in the moonlight against the windlass staging. There he listened to the lad's strenuous and enthusiastic plea. "We've never had a mate like that since we've been on Ballarat," urged Jimmy; "and all done in half-an-hour out of our own odds and ends! Why, mister, that steward of yours would make a man of me and a new man of you in less than no time. And he doesn't even ask to be a partner; he's the very man we want, dropped from the stars on to this blessed claim! If we don't snap him up, others soon will, and we deserve to lose the second-best chance we've ever had." Denis puffed his pipe in silence. "I know him, you see," he said at last. "Of course you do." "But I never liked him." "So he says." "And it was his own fault." "He says that too. He's said enough for me to see he means turning over a new leaf if you give him this chance."