Meantime, he was leading the way across the
quarter-deck under the poop into the long passage with the door of the
saloon at the far end. It was shut. But Mr. Franklin did not go so far.
After passing the pantry he opened suddenly a door on the left of the
passage, to Powell's great surprise.
"Our mess-room," he said, entering a small cabin painted white, bare,
lighted from part of the foremost skylight, and furnished only with a
table and two settees with movable backs. "That surprises you? Well, it
isn't usual. And it wasn't so in this ship either, before. It's only
since--"
He checked himself again. "Yes. Here we shall feed, you and I, facing
each other for the next twelve months or more--God knows how much more!
The bo'sun keeps the deck at meal-times in fine weather."
He talked not exactly wheezing, but like a man whose breath is somewhat
short, and the spirit (young Powell could not help thinking) embittered
by some mysterious grievance.
There was enough of the unusual there to be recognized even by Powell's
inexperience. The officers kept out of the cabin against the custom of
the service, and then this sort of accent in the mate's talk.
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