It was clear enough that Mulgrum was disappointed in the result of this interview; but he took the letter and returned to the table.
At the end of another quarter of an hour, he brought the first copy of the letter.

He knocked as before, and though Christy told him in a loud tone to come in, he did not do so.

He repeated the words, but the conspirator, possibly aware of the blunder he had made before, did not make it again.

Then he wrote on his tablet, after the captain had approved his work, that he found the table very uncomfortable to write upon while the ship was pitching so smartly, and suggested that he should be allowed to make the rest of the copies on the desk in the state room, if the captain did not desire to use it himself.
Unfortunately for the writer, he did desire to use it himself, and he could not help smiling at the enterprise of the deaf mute in his attempt to obtain an opportunity to forage among the papers in his drawers.
Mulgrum certainly did his work nicely and expeditiously, for he had finished it at three bells in the forenoon watch.

He was dismissed then, for his presence was not particularly agreeable to the commander.
Christy locked his desk and all the drawers that contained papers, not as against a thief or a burglar, but against one who would scorn to appropriate anything of value that did not belong to him, for he had no doubt now that Mulgrum was a gentleman who was trying to serve what he regarded as his country, though it was nothing but a fraction of it.
In fact, inheriting, as it were, the broad and generous policy of his father, Christy had no personal prejudices against this enemy of his country, and he felt just as he would if he had been sailing a boat against him, or playing a game of whist with him.