He was, I say, a taciturn man, but one day speech broke
through him. He had been sitting at the table with his arms folded on
it, musing drearily, pipe in mouth, and the voice of the captain drifted
down from above.
The mate lifted his heavy eyes to me and regarded me for a moment.
Then he began to heave with the beginnings of speech. He disembarrassed
himself of his pipe. I cowered with expectation. Speech was coming at
last. Before he spoke he nodded reassuringly once or twice.
"E--"
He moved his head strangely and mysteriously, but a child might have
known he spoke of the captain.
"E's a foreigner."
He regarded me doubtfully for a time, and at last decided for the sake
of lucidity to clench the matter.
"That's what E is--a DAGO!"
He nodded like a man who gives a last tap to a nail, and I could see
he considered his remark well and truly laid. His face, though still
resolute, became as tranquil and uneventful as a huge hall after a
public meeting has dispersed out of it, and finally he closed and locked
it with his pipe.
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