flourished the telegram. "Here the new manager I appointed has gone
and got rheumatic fever up in Aberdeen. No good for six months at least,
if ever. It's a great thing if I could only really get it going. But no!
The luck's wrong. And yet a sound fellow with brains could put that
affair into such shape in a year that I could sell it at a profit of
four hundred per cent to the Southern Combine. However--"

Soon afterwards he went below to talk to the chit, and the skipper took
charge of Mr. Prohack and displayed to him the engine-room, the
officers' quarters, the forecastle, the galley, and all manner of arcana
that Charlie had grandiosely neglected.

"It's a world!" said Mr. Prohack, but the skipper did not quite
comprehend the remark.

"Well," said Charlie, returning. "We'll have some tea and then we must
be off again. I have to be in town to-night. Have you seen everything?
What's the verdict? Some ship, eh?"

"Some ship," agreed Mr. Prohack. "But the most shockingly uneconomic
thing I've ever met with in all my life. How often do you use the
yacht?"

"Well, I haven't been able to use her yet. She's been lying here waiting
for me for nearly a month. I hope to get a few days off soon."

"I understand there's a crew of thirty odd, all able-bodied and knowing
their job, I suppose. And all waiting for a month to give you and me a
lunch and a tea. Seven hundred pounds in wages alone for lunch and a tea
for two, without counting the food and the washing!"

"And why not, dad?" Charlie retorted calmly. "I've got to spend a bit of
money uneconomically, and there's nothing like a yacht for doing it.
I've no use for racing, and moreover it's too difficult not to mix with
rascals if you go in for racing, and I don't care for rascals. Also it's
a mug's game, and I don't want to be a mug. As for young women, no! They
only interest me at present as dancing partners, and they cost me
nothing. A good yacht's the sole possible thing for my case, and a yacht
brings you into contact with clean and decent people, not bookmakers. I
bought this boat for thirty-three thousand, and she's a marvellous
bargain, and that's something."

"But why spend money uneconomically at all?"

"Because I said and swore I would. Didn't I come back from the war and
try all I knew to obtain the inestimable privilege of earning my living
by doing something useful? Did I succeed in obtaining the privilege?
Why, nobody would look at me! And there were t