"Fair enough," replied the honest Murphy. "If I can't be good I'll
be as good as I can."

At that very instant Cappy Ricks was just discovering what kind of
Irish Mr. Terence Reardon was.

The most innocent remark brought him the information he sought.

"Captain Murphy, whom you have just met, is to be master of the
_Narcissus,_ chief," he explained. "He's a splendid fellow
personally and a most capable navigator, and like you he's Irish.
I'm sure you'll get along famously together."

Cappy tried to smile away his apprehension, for a still small voice
whispered to him and questioned the right of Terence Reardon to
call him brother.

Mr. Reardon's sole reply to this optimistic prophecy was a
noncommittal grunt, accompanied by a slight outthrust and uplift of
the chin, a pursing of the lips and the ghost of a sardonic little
smile. Only an Irishman can get the right tempo to that grunt--and the
tempo is everything. In the case of Terence Reardon it said
distinctly: "I hope you're right, sir, but privately I have my
doubts." However, not satisfied with pantomime, Mr. Reardon went a
trifle farther--for reasons best known to himself. He laved the corner
of his mouth with the tip of a tobacco-stained tongue and said
presently: "I can't say, Misther Ricks, that I quite like the cut av
that fella's jib."

That was the Irish of it. A representative of any other race on