having glanced about and run his hand
caressingly over various fearful and pounding steel creatures, had
climbed up the blistering metal staircase to his room at the top and
was proceeding to put down eleven-eleven and various other things
that the first cabin never even heard of, when he felt that he was
being stared at from behind.

Now and then, after shore leave, a drunken trimmer or stoker gets up
to the Chief's room and has to be subdued by the power of executive
eye or the strength of executive arm. As most Chiefs are Scots, the
eye is generally sufficient. So the Chief, mightily ferocious,
turned about, eye set, as one may say, to annihilate a six-foot
trimmer in filthy overalls and a hangover, and saw--a small
red-haired boy in a Turkish towel.

The boy quailed rather at the eye, but he had the courage of nothing
to lose--not even a pair of breeches--and everything to gain.

"Please," said the apparition, "the pilot's gone, and you can't put
me off!"

The Chief opened his mouth and shut it again. The mouth, and the
modification of an eye set for a six-foot trimmer to an eye for a
four-foot-ten urchin in a Turkish towel, produced a certain
softening. The Red Un, who was like the Chief in that he earned his
way by pitting his wits against relentless Nature, smiled a
little--a surface smile, with fear just behind.

"The Captain's boy's my size; I could wear his clothes," he
suggested.

Now, back in that time when the Chief had kept a woman's picture in
his breast pocket instead of in a drawer of his desk, there had been
small furtive hopes, the pride of the Scot to perpetuate his line,
the desire of a man for a manchild. The Chief had buried all that in
the desk drawer with the picture; but he had gone overboard in his
best uniform to rescue a wharf-rat, and he had felt a curious sense
of comfort when he held the cold little figure in his arms and was
hauled on deck, sputtering dirty river water and broad Scotch, as
was his way when excited.

"And where ha' ye been skulking since yesterday?" he demanded.

"In the bed where I was put till last night. This morning early----"
he hesitated.

"Don't lie! Where were ye?"

"In a passenger's room, under a bed. When the passengers came aboard
I had to get out."

"How did ye get here?"

This met with silence. Quite suddenly the Chief recognised the
connivance of the crew, perhaps, or of a kindly stewardess.

"Who told you this was my cabin?" A smile this