The following days, in the interest of getting in touch with the ship, with the men in her, with his duties, in the rather anxious period of settling down, his curiosity slumbered; for of course the pilot's few words had not extinguished it.
This settling down was made easy for him by the friendly character of his immediate superior--the chief.

Powell could not defend himself from some sympathy for that thick, bald man, comically shaped, with his crimson complexion and something pathetic in the rolling of his very movable black eyes in an apparently immovable head, who was so tactfully ready to take his competency for granted.
There can be nothing more reassuring to a young man tackling his life's work for the first time.

Mr.Powell, his mind at ease about himself, had time to observe the people around with friendly interest.

Very early in the beginning of the passage, he had discovered with some amusement that the marriage of Captain Anthony was resented by those to whom Powell (conscious of being looked upon as something of an outsider) referred in his mind as 'the old lot.' They had the funny, regretful glances, intonations, nods of men who had seen other, better times.

What difference it could have made to the bo'sun and the carpenter Powell could not very well understand.