em
until the officer turned and saw him.

"Ho, I was beginning to think you'd given me the go-by for to-night."
They shook hands.

"Isn't it the most beautiful mechanism ever made by the hand of man!"
exclaimed the officer. "A watch is nothing to it. And what you see here
cost more than twenty thousand watches--twenty thousand of 'em, and
every danged watch in a gold case."

He drew out his own gun-metal stop-watch. "I'll time her now for a
hundred revolutions."

He caught the time, set it down in a little notebook, and from it slowly
but surely reckoned her speed. "Grand, grand!" he said softly. "Will you
come along? Good!"

They descended and ascended many narrow iron ladders and made their way
through many narrow, grimy passageways. Oilers, stokers, coal-passers,
water-tenders straightened up to give them a greeting as they passed. In
one boiler-room a stoker was scooping a dipper through the water-pail at
his feet as they entered.

"Are we holding our own this watch, Mr. Linnell?" He held the dipper
respectfully in suspense for the answer.

"Holding it? Yes, and more."

"Hi, hi! an' that gang went off watch before us, Mr. Linnell--an' I
fancy they rate themselves a competent watch--among themselves,
sir--they threw it at us as how we'd do mighty well to hold our own." By
this time his chief had passed on, but Lavis, lingering, saw the stoker
gulp a mouthful of water, hold it a moment, and squirt it, _s-s-t!_
contemptuously into a heap of hot ashes.

Linnell continued his rounds, sparing a nod here; a nod there, almost a
full smile at times, and at times, too, a sharp snap of criticism. Lavis
in his rear caught the pursuing comment. He was the kind, was the chief,
to soon let you know where you stood. And right he was. And no one would
begrudge him what he could make of the passage, if so be he could make a
bit more of reputation out of it, for surely his heart was in his work.
Never one to loaf, by all reports, but this time!--not a single watch
without his full rounds below.

Lavis followed the engineer up a narrow iron ladder, and thence up a
wide iron ladder, to where, from a heavily grated brass-railed platform,
Linnell surveyed his engines.

He laid a hand on Lavis's shoulder and extended an eloquent arm. "Worth
looking at, aren't they? The largest engines ever went into a ship,
those engines you are looking at now, Mr. Lavis. It is something to have
charge of the likes of them. Wait till I see s