Cap'n Amazon looked coolly at her, but did not offer
to take the key out of his trousers' pocket.
"What d'ye mean?" repeated Betty, breathless.
"I mean to keep my cabin locked," he told her in a perfectly passive
voice, but in a manner that halted her suddenly, angry as she was. "I
don't want no woman messin' with my berth nor with my duds. That
door's no more locked against you than it is against my niece. You do
the rest of your work and don't you worry your soul 'bout my cabin."
Louise, who was an observant spectator of this contest, expected at
first that Betty would not stand the indignity--that she would resign
from her situation on the spot.
But that hard, compelling stare of Cap'n Amazon seemed to tame her.
And Betty Gallup was a person not easily tamed. She spluttered a
little more, then returned to her work. Though she was sullen all day,
she did not offer to reopen the discussion.
"What a master he must have been on his own quarter-deck," Louise
thought. "And he must have seen rough times, as that Lawford Tapp
suggested.
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