“You have an officers’ mess-room,” he told Captain Henderson, “and if ye don’t mind, I will stay with them and find a spare bunk for’ard.” For once Johnny Kent refused to follow the lead of his skipper. He was graciously pleased to take the quarters allotted him, and proposed to mingle with the passengers. Early next morning he wallowed in a tub, summoned the ship’s barber, and arrayed himself in clothes borrowed from the chief engineer of the _Caronic_, who chanced to be a person of ample dimensions. Thus transformed, Johnny Kent was no longer a ruffian of the high-seas. He had an aspect of dignified, mellowed respectability. His brick-red countenance radiated kindly interest and benevolence. Small children ran to him and instantly became his friends. The blustering note had gone from his voice. He checked his worst grammatical blunders and his shrewd eyes were quick to observe the manners of his fellow-passengers, which he sedulously set himself to copy. Strolling forward after breakfast, he discovered Captain O’Shea and confided: “This touch of high life suits me down to the heels, Cap’n Mike. And I’m not such a bull in a china-shop as you might think. The passengers are crazy to meet you. They want to hear about your adventures.” “I am comfortable right here, Johnny. You are welcome to the bouquets. Have ye seen Miss Hollister this morning?” “No, she’s still abed, but the ship’s doctor says she will come around all right. I’ll surprise her some, won’t I? Honestly, Cap’n Mike, after I make two or three more voyages with you, if they’re risky enough to pay big wages, I’m goin’ to pick out that farm down in Maine and hand over a first payment on it.” “Have ye consulted with Miss Hollister?” “Of course. She’s my right bower when it comes to good advice. Not that she is personally interested--I was just dreamin’ dreams, you understand--but if I had the farm maybe I could see her again and talk about pigs and hens, and gardens and flowers.” “You are not as down-hearted as when ye were on the key, Johnny,” smilingly quoth Captain O’Shea. “It’s the clothes and the refined surroundin’s, Cap’n Mike. I take to ’em somehow more than I ever did before. I seem sort of changed.” “’Tis likely a first-class marine engineer will be spoiled to make a lubber of a farmer,” returned O’Shea. “It’s a rough life we lead, Cap’n Mike, and a man of my age hadn’t ought to stick to it too long.” Jack Gorham joined them, looking even leaner and sadder than when he had been in the _Fearless_. “And what will you be doing with yourself?” cordially inquired O’Shea. “Mr. Van Steen offers me an easy job in New York, sir, and a salary, whether I work or not. But I’m on nobody’s pension-roll. I shall get out of Jamaica in a sail-boat and sneak over to Cuba and join the rebels.” “And will big Jiminez go with ye?” “He is sort of tore up in his mind, sir, between following you on the chance of another fancy voyage and duckin’ into the jungle with me.”