Besides themselves only the
ladies'-cabin people and the captain, away aft, lingered. The long,
intervening double line of mere feeders was gone and the cabin-boys were
setting the second table. The commodore rose and the seven drifted out
again, with their seven toothpicks, to the boiler deck. There men who
had passed the salt to each other at table were giving each other
cigars, some standing in knots, others taking chairs about the guards.
Almost every one had related himself to some other one or more as
somehow his or their guest and host combined, and had taken his turn or
was watching his chance to recognize the captain as social and civil
autocrat and guardian angel over all. The conspicuousness of the twins
led to stories, in undertone, of the long Hayle-Courteney rivalry.
"Remarkable, how it's run on and on without their ever locking horns,
eh?"
"Mighty nigh did it when the _Quakeress_ burned."
"Oh! do you really think so?"
"I know it, sir!" He who knew spat over the rail, and the one who had
dared to doubt moved on. Between stories there were debates on the
comparative merits of the two types of hull favored respectively by the
rival builders: the slim Hayle model and the not so slim of the
Courteneys.
"After all, sir," asserted a man of eagle eye, "a duck flies faster than
a crane.
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