CHAPTER XIX
In Which I Learn Something More About the Barney Twins
The captain allowed Singh to wait upon his “Missee” to his heart’s content, and I heard the two mates laughing over the fact that the Hindoo insisted upon acting as steward and waiting upon the Captain Sahib at table. The Old Man wasn’t used to having a man standing behind his chair at meals and it near took his appetite away at first. But Phillis being in the cabin and soon taking her meals at the first table, pleased the officers immensely, I could see.
Forward, Singh was forever trying to do little things for me, and learning that I thought a good deal of Thankful Polk, the Hindoo included my chum in his voluntary services. He looked over our clothes and mended them, and insisted upon doing our washing.
“That Jasper is just as handy as any house-broke nigger I ever saw,” declared Thank. “My folks owned slaves before the war; but I don’t know but being waited on by one is going to be too rich for my blood.”
Thank saw no difference between a Hindoo and a Negro; anything off color was a “Jasper” to him. But it tickled him when Singh called him “Polk Sahib.” With the other hands he was never familiar; but nobody save Bob Promise treated him unkindly. Bob was a bully, and that mean streak in him was bound to show on the surface every once in awhile.
Meantime the old Gullwing was snoring away up the coast of South America. Not that the land was in sight, for we were miles and miles off shore; but the course she followed was parallel to the coast. The Seamew was not sighted for days at a stretch, and we did not know whether she was ahead of us or astern. I had an idea, however, that during the favorable weather she was walking away from us at a pretty lively gait.
Since I had returned from my sojourn aboard the Seamew I thought that Mr. Barney treated me differently. That is, when we were off duty and chance threw us together. Before my accident I had put on the gloves with him on several occasions, and he had been kind enough to say that I was as good a sparring partner as he had ever had. We took up this exercise again, as the weather remained so favorable.
He was curious about the attitude of the Seamew’s company toward us, and whether they were as eager to win the race to Baltimore as were the men aboard the Gullwing.
“More so,” I told him. “They mean to beat us if they can—from Cap’n Somes all down the line.”
He threw off the gloves and said, with a side glance at me:
“My brother, too?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Just as eager as the others?”
“Just as eager, sir.”
He was silent a moment, as I got into my shirt, and then he shot at me:
“What did you think of my brother, Alf Webb?”
I was rather taken aback for a moment. Then I saw that he expected a straight answer and I did not like to say that I did not like Mr. Alf as well as I did him. So I stammered:
“I—I thought there was something troubling Mr. Alfred’s mind.”
“Aye?” returned Mr. Barney, cocking his eye. “There’s something troubling both our minds, I reckon.” And then, after a moment’s silence, he asked: “Will the Seamew beat us, Webb?”
“I hope not!” I cried. “But the spirit among the crew of the Seamew is different from ours. Cap’n Somes would take any advantage he could to beat us; so would Mr. Hollister and—and——”
“And my brother?”
“I—I am afraid so. That is the way it impressed me,” I admitted.
“Alf didn’t use to be like that,” said Mr. Barney, gravely. “But he and I have been at outs for some time. It’s a bad, bad affair,” he added, more to himself than to me. “And it’s Uncle Jothan’s fault. Confound that old man, anyway!” he completed, with a good deal of emphasis.
Then it was just as Job Perkins had told me! The rivalry between the Barney twins was fostered by their rich uncle. I had no comment to make—it wasn’t my place. But Mr. Barney seemed to wish to talk to somebody, and perhaps because I was so near his own age (he could not have been twenty-three yet) and came from people who were more like his own class, he warmed toward me for the moment. Perhaps, too, I am a sympathetic listener.
“Alf and I,” said Mr. Barney, thoughtfully, “have always been more than brothers. We’ve been friends. There’s a difference. We understand each other fully—or always have until now. I never had any other chum, nor did he. We have been just as close to each other all our lives as the day we were born.
“I guess we had to be,” he added, thoughtfully. “There wasn’t anybody else for us to get close to. Our mother died soon after we were born. Father was lost in that old leaky bucket belonging to the firm, the Timothy K.—named after T. K. Knight, who used to be head of Barney, Blakesley & Knight before Uncle Jothan worked up in the firm.
“And that’s what makes the old man so crazy now. He wants a Barney to take his place so that another Knight won’t boss things. He’s nutty on it—that’s what he is!
“Uncle Jothan has had the care of us since we were small, you see. It’s nothing to his credit, however. Father left some property—sufficient to give Alf and me our education and set us out into the world with a little something to rattle in our pants’ pockets besides a bunch of keys!
“Old Uncle Jothan tried to set us boys at each other long ago. He tried his best to set one off against the other—to make Alf sore on me, or me sore on Alf. We didn’t see what he was getting at, at first.
“But he didn’t succeed very well. He made his favor, and his money, and his influence an object for us to struggle for. As it happened, we just wouldn’t struggle. We would not be rivals. What one had, t’other had. And that satisfied us—until last year,” and Mr. Barney shook his head dolefully.
“When we got our tickets the old man was crazy to find out if one of us passed better than another. We were about equal, I reckon. What one knows about seamanship, the other knows. In navigation I’m sure we stood equal.
“That didn’t satisfy Uncle Jothan. The last day we saw Baltimore he had us to breakfast with him. He was more ornery that morning than ever before.
“‘You two boys make me sick!’ he said to us. ‘I believe you try your blamedest to keep even in everything.’
“‘And what if we do?’ I asked him. ‘Ain’t that as it should be? We’re twins.’
“‘You’re a pair of twin fools,’ says he, with his usual politeness. ‘One of you don’t know which side of his slice of bread the butter’s on.’
“I looked at mine. ‘The top side,’ I says, ‘so far,’ and Alf laughed.
“‘And you’ll find it butter side down, if you don’t have a care,’ snarled Uncle Jothan. ‘I got about tired of waiting for one of you to show some sense. I tell you there’s only room for one of you in the firm, and that one is going to handle my money. The other is going to be a poor man all his life.’
“‘Which one’s going to be poor, and which one rich?’ Alf asked him.
“‘You might as well tell us which will be rich, Uncle,’ I said, laughing. ‘For if it’s Alf, then I can begin to borrow from him right now.’
“‘That’s right,’ says Brother Alf. ‘What’s mine is yours.’
“That really made the old man mad, I expect. He pretty near gnashed his teeth.
“‘I believe I’ve got a pair of totally condemned fools for nephews!’ he yelled, only he put it even stronger.
“Oh, he was mad! I saw that we’d gone too far with him.
“‘Never mind, Uncle,’ I said, soothingly. ‘We’ll both do our best for you——’
“‘And your “best” will be just exactly alike,’ he cried. ‘When you get your mate’s tickets it will be the same, and in the end I’ll have a couple of masters of windjammers as near alike as old Somes and Bowditch. What one can do the other can do. Ye stood just the same in your books at school, and you stand just the same in your rating at sea.’
“I expect the old man was pretty well heated up. But we just laughed as though it was a joke.
“‘I tell you what,’ says he, pushing back his chair. ‘You sha’n’t fool me no more. One of you is going to take his place in the firm at the end of this v’yge you are beginning. One of you will win and the other will lose. And I’ll never let a penny of my money get into the hands of the fellow that loses.’
“Oh, he was quite in earnest, we could see. Alf looked at me and shook his head. It was past laughing at.
“‘The Gullwing and the Seamew,’ says uncle, ‘are putting to sea on the same day. They will practically make the same voyage. Now listen to me! Whichever of you boys steps ashore at Baltimore at the end of the voyage, that boy will be my heir, and the other sha’n’t have a cent. Now, that’s final. One of you has got to win, whether you want to, or not. I’ll settle it myself.’
“And with that he walked off and left us, too mad to even bid us good-bye,” said Mr. Barney.