Chance

“‘That’s all right, Symons. I know the gentleman,’ says Mr Powell as serious as a judge.

“‘Very well, sir. Of course, sir. I saw the gentleman running races all by ’isself down ’ere, so I...’

“‘It’s all right I tell you,’ Mr Powell cut him short with a wave of his hand; and, as the old fraud walked off at last, he raised his eyes to me. I did not know what to do: stay there, or clear out, or say that I was sorry.

“‘Let’s see,’ says he, ‘what did you tell me your name was?’

“Now, observe, I hadn’t given him my name at all and his question embarrassed me a bit. Somehow or other it didn’t seem proper for me to fling his own name at him as it were. So I merely pulled out my new certificate from my pocket and put it into his hand unfolded, so that he could read Charles Powell written very plain on the parchment.

“He dropped his eyes on to it and after a while laid it quietly on the desk by his side. I didn’t know whether he meant to make any remark on this coincidence. Before he had time to say anything the glass door came open with a bang and a tall, active man rushed in with great strides. His face looked very red below his high silk hat. You could see at once he was the skipper of a big ship.

“Mr Powell, after telling me in an undertone to wait a little, addressed him in a friendly way.

“‘I’ve been expecting you in every moment to fetch away your Articles, Captain. Here they are all ready for you.’ And turning to a pile of agreements lying at his elbow he took up the topmost of them. From where I stood I could read the words: ‘Ship Ferndale’ written in a large round hand on the first page.

“‘No, Mr Powell, they aren’t ready, worse luck,’ says that skipper. ‘I’ve got to ask you to strike out my second officer.’ He seemed excited and bothered. He explained that his second mate had been working on board all the morning. At one o’clock he went out to get a bit of dinner and didn’t turn up at two as he ought to have done. Instead there came a messenger from the hospital with a note signed by a doctor. Collar-bone and one arm broken. Let himself be knocked down by a pair-horse van while crossing the road outside the dock gate, as if he had neither eyes nor ears. And the ship ready to leave the dock at six o’clock to-morrow morning!

“Mr Powell dipped his pen and began to turn the leaves of the agreement over. ‘We must then take his name off,’ he says in a kind of unconcerned sing-song.

“‘What am I to do?’ burst out the skipper. ‘This office closes at four o’clock. I can’t find a man in half an hour.’

“‘This office closes at four,’ repeats Mr Powell glancing up and down the pages and touching up a letter here and there with perfect indifference.

“‘Even if I managed to lay hold some time to-day of a man ready to go at such short notice I couldn’t ship him regularly here—could I?’

“Mr Powell was busy drawing his pen through the entries relating to that unlucky second mate and making a note in the margin.

“‘You could sign him on yourself on board,’ says he without looking up. ‘But I don’t think you’ll find easily an officer for such a pier-head jump.’

“Upon this the fine-looking skipper gave signs of distress. The ship mustn’t miss the next morning’s tide. He had to take on board forty tons of dynamite and a hundred and twenty tons of gunpowder at a place down the river before proceeding to sea. It was all arranged for next day. There would be no end of fuss and complications if the ship didn’t turn up in time.—I couldn’t help hearing all this, while wishing him to take himself off, because I wanted to know why Mr Powell had told me to wait. After what he had been saying there didn’t seem any object in my hanging about. If I had had my certificate in my pocket I should have tried to slip away quietly; but Mr Powell had turned about into the same position I found him in at first and was again swinging his leg. My certificate open on the desk was under his left elbow and I couldn’t very well go up and jerk it away.

“‘I don’t know,’ says he carelessly, addressing the helpless captain but looking fixedly at me with an expression as if I hadn’t been there. ‘I don’t know whether I ought to tell you that I know of a disengaged second mate at hand.’

“‘Do you mean you’ve got him here?’ shouts the other looking all over the empty public part of the office as if he were ready to fling himself bodily upon anything resembling a second mate. He had been so full of his difficulty that I verily believe he had never noticed me. Or perhaps seeing me inside he may have thought I was some understrapper belonging to the place. But when Mr Powell nodded in my direction he became very quiet and gave me a long stare. Then he stooped to Mr Powell’s ear—I suppose he imagined he was whispering, but I heard him well enough.

“‘Looks very respectable.’

“‘Certainly,’ says the Shipping Master quite calm and staring all the time at me. ‘His name’s Powell.’

“‘Oh, I see!’ says the skipper as if struck all of a heap. ‘But is he ready to join at once?’

“I had a sort of vision of my lodgings—in the North of London, too, beyond Dalston, away to the devil—and all my gear scattered about, and my empty sea-chest somewhere in an outhouse the good people I was staying with had at the end of their sooty strip of garden. I heard the Shipping Master say in the coolest sort of way:—

“‘He’ll sleep on board to-night.’

“‘He had better,’ says the Captain of the Ferndale very businesslike, as if the whole thing were settled. I can’t say I was dumb for joy as you may suppose. It wasn’t exactly that. I was more by way of being out of breath with the quickness of it. It didn’t seem possible that this was happening to me. But the skipper, after he had talked for a while with Mr Powell, too low for me to hear became visibly perplexed.

“I suppose he had heard I was freshly passed and without experience as an officer, because he turned about and looked me over as if I had been exposed for sale.

“‘He’s young,’ he mutters. ‘Looks smart, though... You’re smart and willing (this to me very sudden and loud) and all that, aren’t you?’

“I just managed to open and shut my mouth, no more, being taken unawares. But it was enough for him. He made as if I had deafened him with protestations of my smartness and willingness.

“‘Of course, of course. All right.’ And then turning to the Shipping Master who sat there swinging his leg, he said that he certainly couldn’t go to sea without a second officer. I stood by as if all these things were happening to some other chap whom I was seeing through with it. Mr Powell stared at me with those shining eyes of his. But