"Oh, that--yah." Jenks rubbed his face wearily and subsided. "Go on, Ben." "Well, sir, only that Mr. Dyckman came to that tavern while we were there, and was drinking rum with the new bosun Tom Ball, and--had evidently been drinking already for some time. He was very foxed." "Jan Dyckman? Are you certain, Ben?" "Of course, sir. Mr. Shawn noticed it too. I had the thought he might wish me to introduce him to Mr. Dyckman, but Mr. Shawn said nay, let it be another time, for Mr. Dyckman was not himself. In fact, Uncle John, he looked directly at me without recognition, though he knows me well enough. Knew me, I suppose I must say." Captain Jenks was staring down into his hands as if wondering why they were empty. To them he said ponderously: "Jan seldom drank, and when he did could always hold his liquor like a man. Shit, I don't believe it." "Peter, my boy Benjamin is not an inventor of tales." "Tell him," said Jenks--Ben might have been in Roxbury--"tell him to spend more time with the futtering books, and less with silver-tongued bloody idlers and Irish at that." "Mr. Jenks"--that was Reuben, an ugly softness such as Ben had never before heard in his light adolescent baritone--"you are doing an injustice, to my brother certainly, and perhaps to Mr. Shawn." Jenks turned slowly to examine him, as one who wished to ask: Who a devil's name are you? Beside Reuben's cold furious face was the waiting quiet of Mr. Kenny. The Captain's wrath appeared to fade, a fire he could not be troubled to sustain. "D'you tell me the same, John?" "I do." "Then I am sorry, and will retract what I said, and hope no offense was taken." "None, sir," said Ben quickly, inwardly very greatly offended; but Peter Jenks was Faith's father, and was at present (as Uncle John would have said) not his own man. Mr. Derry, evidently fatigued from the labor of saying nothing, now mildly and respectfully asked: "Had you more to tell, Mr. Cory?" "There was one thing," said Ben, but stopped at a knocking on the office door, and after a nod from Uncle John opened it. Daniel Shawn was very clean, fresh, brisk. He smiled at Ben, not with any smirk of conspiracy or other reminder of the night, but openly and amiably. "Good morning, Ben--but it's not the good morning, now that's no lie." He turned at once to Mr. Kenny. "Sir, don't be slow to tell me if I intrude. I heard, sir--the water front is talking of nothing else the day. I wished to say, if there be anything I might do, I owe you some service, Mr. Kenny, if only for your kindness and hospitality the other night, and you may call on me for anything it's in my power to do at all." "That's kind," said Mr. Kenny vaguely.