"'Ye can consider yourself dismissed. We must preserve discipline among our employees,' said old Holdock, an' he looked round to see that the Board was with him. They knew nothin'--G.o.d forgie 'em--an' they nodded me out o' the line after twenty years--after twenty years.

"I went out an' sat down by the hall porter to get my wits again. I'm thinkin' I swore at the Board. Then auld McRimmon--o' McNaughten & McRimmon--came, oot o' his office, that's on the same floor, an' looked at me, proppin' up one eyelid wi' his forefinger. Ye know they call him the Blind Deevil, forbye he onythin' but blind, an' no deevil in his dealin's wi' me--McRimmon o' the Black Bird Line.

"'What's here, Mister McPhee?' said he.

"I was past prayin' for by then. 'A Chief Engineer sacked after twenty years' service because he'll not risk the Breslau on the new timin', an'

be d.a.m.ned to ye, McRimmon,' I said.

"The auld man sucked in his lips an' whistled. 'AH,' said he, 'the new timin'. I see!' He doddered into the Board-room I'd just left, an' the Dandie-dog that is just his blind man's leader stayed wi' me. That was providential. In a minute he was back again. 'Ye've cast your bread on the watter, McPhee, an' be d.a.m.ned to you,' he says. 'Whaur's my dog? My word, is he on your knee? There's more discernment in a dog than a Jew.

What garred ye curse your Board, McPhee? It's expensive.'

"'They'll pay more for the Breslau,' I said. 'Get off my knee, ye smotherin' beast.'

"'Bearin's hot, eh?' said McRimmon. 'It's thirty year since a man daur curse me to my face. Time was I'd ha' cast ye doon the stairway for that.'

"'Forgie's all!' I said. He was wearin' to eighty, as I knew. 'I was wrong, McRimmon; but when a man's shown the door for doin' his plain duty he's not always ceevil.'

"'So I hear,' says McRimmon. 'Ha' ye ony objection to a tramp freighter?

It's only fifteen a month, but they say the Blind Deevil feeds a man better than others. She's my Kite. Come ben. Ye can thank Dandie, here.

I'm no used to thanks. An' noo,' says he, 'what possessed ye to throw up your berth wi' Holdock?'

"'The new timin',' said I. 'The Breslau will not stand it.'

"'Hoot, oot,' said he. 'Ye might ha' crammed her a little--enough to show ye were drivin' her--an' brought her in twa days behind. What's easier than to say ye slowed for bearin's, eh? All my men do it, and--I believe 'em.'

"'McRimmon,' says I, 'what's her virginity to a la.s.sie?'

"He puckered his dry face an' twisted in his chair. 'The warld an' a','

says he. 'My G.o.d, the vara warld an' a' (But what ha' you or me to do wi' virginity, this late along?)'

"'This,' I said. 'There's just one thing that each one of us in his trade or profession will not do for ony consideration whatever. If I run to time I run to time barrio' always the risks o' the high seas. Less than that, under G.o.d, I have not done. More than that, by G.o.d, I will not do! There's no trick o' the trade I'm not acquaint wi'--'

"'So I've heard,' says McRimmon, dry as a biscuit.

"'But yon matter o' fair rennin' s just my Shekinah, ye'll understand. I daurna tamper wi' that. Nursing weak engines is fair craftsmanship; but what the Board ask is cheatin', wi' the risk o' manslaughter addeetional.' Ye'll note I know my business.

"There was some more talk, an' next week I went aboard the Kite, twenty-five hunder ton, simple compound, a Black Bird tramp. The deeper she rode, the better she'd steam. I've snapped as much as eleven out of her, but eight point three was her fair normal. Good food forward an'

better aft, all indents pa.s.sed wi'out marginal remarks, the best coal, new donkeys, and good crews. There was nothin' the old man would not do, except paint. That was his deeficulty. Ye could no more draw paint than his last teeth from him. He'd come down to dock, an' his boats a scandal all along the watter, an' he'd whine an' cry an' say they looked all he could desire. Every owner has his non plus ultra, I've obsairved. Paint was McRimmon's. But you could get round his engines without riskin'

your life, an', for all his blindness, I've seen him reject five flawed intermediates, one after the other, on a nod from me; an' his cattle-fittin's were guaranteed for North Atlantic winter weather. Ye ken what that means? McRimmon an' the Black Bird Line, G.o.d bless him!

"Oh, I forgot to say she would lie down an' fill her forward deck green, an' snore away into a twenty-knot gale forty-five to the minute, three an' a half knots an hour, the engines runnin' sweet an' true as a bairn breathin' in its sleep. Bell was skipper; an' forbye there's no love lost between crews an' owners, we were fond o' the auld Blind Deevil an'

his dog, an' I'm thinkin' he liked us. He was worth the windy side o'

twa million sterlin', an' no friend to his own blood-kin. Money's an awfu' thing--overmuch--for a lonely man.

"I'd taken her out twice, there an' back again, when word came o' the Breslau's breakdown, just as I prophesied. Calder was her engineer--he's not fit to run a tug down the Solent--and he fairly lifted the engines off the bed-plates, an' they fell down in heaps, by what I heard. So she filled from the after stuffin'-box to the after bulkhead, an' lay star-gazing, with seventy-nine squealin' pa.s.sengers in the saloon, till the Camaralzaman o' Ramsey & Gold's Cartagena line gave her a tow to the tune o' five thousand seven hunder an' forty pound, wi' costs in the Admiralty Court. She was helpless, ye'll understand, an' in no case to meet ony weather. Five thousand seven hunder an' forty pounds, with costs, an' exclusive o' new engines! They'd ha' done better to ha' kept me on the old timin'.

"But, even so, the new Board were all for retrenchment. Young Steiner, the Jew, was at the bottom of it. They sacked men right an' left, that would not eat the dirt the Board gave 'em. They cut down repairs; they fed crews wi' leavin's an' sc.r.a.pin's; and, reversin', McRimmon's practice, they hid their defeeciencies wi' paint an' cheap gildin'. Quem Deus vult perrdere prrius dementat, ye remember.

"In January we went to dry-dock, an' in the next dock lay the Grotkau, their big freighter that was the Dolabella o' Piegan, Piegan & Walsh's line in '84--a Clyde-built iron boat, a flat-bottomed, pigeon-breasted, under-engined, bull-nosed b.i.t.c.h of a five thousand ton freighter, that would neither steer, nor steam, nor stop when ye asked her. Whiles she'd attend to her helm, whiles she'd take charge, whiles she'd wait to scratch herself, an' whiles she'd b.u.t.tock into a dockhead. But Holdock and Steiner had bought her cheap, and painted her all over like the Hoor o' Babylon, an' we called her the Hoor for short." (By the way, McPhee kept to that name throughout the rest of his tale; so you must read accordingly.) "I went to see young Bannister--he had to take what the Board gave him, an' he an' Calder were shifted together from the Breslau to this abortion--an' talkin' to him I went into the dock under her.

Her plates were pitted till the men that were paint, paint, paintin' her laughed at it. But the warst was at the last. She'd a great clumsy iron twelve-foot Thresher propeller--Aitcheson designed the Kites'--and just on the tail o' the shaft, behind the boss, was a red weepin' crack ye could ha' put a penknife to. Man, it was an awful crack!

"'When d' ye ship a new tail-shaft?' I said to Bannister.

"He knew what I meant. 'Oh, yon's a superfeecial flaw,' says he, not lookin' at me.

"'Superfeecial Gehenna!' I said. 'Ye'll not take her oot wi' a solution o' continuity that like.'

"'They'll putty it up this evening,' he said. 'I'm a married man, an'--ye used to know the Board.'

"I e'en said what was gied me in that hour. Ye know how a drydock echoes. I saw young Steiner standin' listenin' above me, an', man, he used language provocative of a breach o' the peace. I was a spy and a disgraced employ, an' a corrupter o' young Bannister's morals, an' he'd prosecute me for libel. He went away when I ran up the steps--I'd ha'

thrown him into the dock if I'd caught him--an' there I met McRimmon, wi' Dandie pullin' on the chain, guidin' the auld man among the railway lines.

"'McPhee,' said he, 'ye're no paid to fight Holdock, Steiner, Chase & Company, Limited, when ye meet. What's wrong between you?'

"'No more than a tail-shaft rotten as a kail-stump. For ony sakes go an'

look, McRimmon. It's a comedietta.'

"'I'm feared o' yon conversational Hebrew,' said he. 'Whaur's the flaw, an' what like?'

"'A seven-inch crack just behind the boss. There's no power on earth will fend it just jarrin' off.'

"'When?'

"'That's beyon' my knowledge,' I said.

"'So it is; so it is,' said McRimmon. 'We've all oor leemitations. Ye're certain it was a crack?'

"'Man, it's a creva.s.se,' I said, for there were no words to describe the magnitude of it. 'An' young Bannister's sayin' it's no more than a superfeecial flaw!'

"'Weell, I tak' it oor business is to mind oor business. If ye've ony friends aboard her, McPhee, why not bid them to a bit dinner at Radley's?'

"'I was thinkin' o' tea in the cuddy,' I said. 'Engineers o' tramp freighters cannot afford hotel prices.'

"'Na! na!' says the auld man, whimperin'. 'Not the cuddy. They'll laugh at my Kite, for she's no plastered with paint like the Hoor. Bid them to Radley's, McPhee, an' send me the bill. Thank Dandie, here, man. I'm no used to thanks.' Then he turned him round. (I was just thinkin' the vara same thing.) 'Mister McPhee,' said he, 'this is not senile dementia.'

"'Preserve 's!' I said, clean jumped oot o' mysel'. 'I was but thinkin'

you're fey, McRimmon.'

"Dod, the auld deevil laughed till he nigh sat down on Dandie. 'Send me the bill,' says he. 'I'm long past champagne, but tell me how it tastes the morn.'

"Bell and I bid young Bannister and Calder to dinner at Radley's.

They'll have no laughin' an' singin' there, but we took a private room--like yacht-owners fra' Cowes."

McPhee grinned all over, and lay back to think.

"And then?" said I.

"We were no drunk in ony preceese sense o' the word, but Radley's showed me the dead men. There were six magnums o' dry champagne an' maybe a bottle o' whisky."