The expression on his face was that of a cattle-buyer, and it was plain that he was disgusted with the quality of cattle delivered.
"Something the matter with the last mother's son of them," he growled.
And still they came: one, pallid, furtive-eyed, that I instantly adjudged a drug fiend; another, a tiny, wizened old man, pinch-faced and wrinkled, with beady, malevolent blue eyes; a third, a small, well-fleshed man, who seemed to my eye the most normal and least unintelligent specimen that had yet appeared.

But Mr.Pike's eye was better trained than mine.
"What's the matter with _you_ ?" he snarled at the man.
"Nothing, sir," the fellow answered, stopping immediately.
"What's your name ?" Mr.Pike never spoke to a sailor save with a snarl.
"Charles Davis, sir." "What are you limping about ?" "I ain't limpin', sir," the man answered respectfully, and, at a nod of dismissal from the mate, marched off jauntily along the deck with a heodlum swing to the shoulders.
"He's a sailor all right," the mate grumbled; "but I'll bet you a pound of tobacco or a month's wages there's something wrong with him." The forecastle now seemed empty, but the mate turned on the bosuns with his customary snarl.
"What in hell are you doing?
Sleeping?
Think this is a rest cure?
Get in there an' rustle 'em out!" Sundry Buyers pressed his abdomen gingerly and hesitated, while Nancy, his face one dogged, long-suffering bleakness, reluctantly entered the forecastle.

Then, from inside, we heard oaths, vile and filthy, urgings and expostulations on the part of Nancy, meekly and pleadingly uttered.
I noted the grim and savage look that came on Mr.Pike's face, and was prepared for I knew not what awful monstrosities to emerge from the forecastle.

Instead, to my surprise, came three fellows who were strikingly superior to the ruck that had preceded them.

I looked to see the mate's face soften to some sort of approval.