ys: 'The marster, an' my missus, too,
says when ye're gettin' your twelve pound in the month, Andie, I'm to
marry you.'

"'Wherever will I be findin' twelve pound in the month?' I says. 'Your
danged old doctor himsel' is collectin' but little more nor that of his
bills in the month, him wi' his red herrin' an' oatmeal porridge for
breakfast every mornin' of his life!' I says. She'd told me herself o'
the red herrin'. An' I left her clickin' her fancy high heels together
under her penny chair, an' I'd paid tuppence each for the two of us at
the gate comin' in. 'But you wasn't ever thinkin' o' gettin' marrit
yourself, Mr. Linnell?' I says.

"'Maybe you noticed a large photograph, Andie, above my desk whenever
you come to my room?' he asks. I said as how I did. 'And you had no
suspicions?' he says. 'Well, sir,' I says, 'I did make suspicion it
wasn't altogether by way of exercisin' o' your muscles you dusted the
gold frame of it so frequent.'

"'I was only waitin',' he says, 'till I'd made a bit more reputation,
and only to-night it was, me makin' my rounds, that I was thinkin' at
last I had made it.' And he stop there, an' lets his pipe go out the
while he looks down at his beautiful engines, an' then he has the loan
of another match of me, an' he says: 'Andie, but it does seem hard that
your life an' mine must be smashed through the misbehavior of others.'
An' I thought myself it was, without meanin' to cast blame, sir, on
others.

"An' we finished our pipeful together, an' he stands up an' says, 'Good
luck to you, Andie, lad,' and I knew he was wishful to be alone. An' so,
'Good luck to you, Mister Linnell,' I says, an' we gave each other
another long grup o' the hand. I was wantin' to tell him he was the best
chief ever I worked under, but he wasn't ever the kind, you see, sir,
to be praisin' to his face. An' at the top of the ladder I looks down,
an' there he was wi' his arms folded across the shiny brass railin', an'
he lookin' down, aweary-like, at his engines."

Lavis took Andie's hand. "A good man, Andie. And a good man yourself,
Andie. Good-by, and God bless you!"

"Thank you, sir. Good-by, sir. And the same to you." Andie turned to the
rail and with folded arms set his face to the impassive sea.

Lavis passed on to where from a tarpaulined hatch a Catholic priest was
saying a litany, while around him a body of kneeling men and women were
responding. He had donned his cassock, and a shining silver crucifi