e floor of the house,
washing out the lower bunks, bed and bedding, and soaking every stitch
of the clothing that we had fondly hoped would keep us moderately dry
in the next bitter night watch. And when (as we try with trembling,
benumbed fingers to buckle on the sodden clothes) the ill-hinged door
swings to, and a rush of water and a blast of icy wind chills us to the
marrow, it needs but a hoarse, raucous shout from without to crown the
summit of misery. "Out there, the watch! Turn out!" in tone that
admits of no protest. "Turn out, damn ye, an' stand-by t' wear ship!"

(A blast of wind and rain rattles on my window-pane. _Ugh_! I turn
the more cosily amid my blankets.)

Oh yes! He would have something to growl at, that young man who asked
if the 'Skipp-ah' was aboard, and said he "was deshed if he could see
what we hed to complain of."

He would learn, painfully, that a ship, snugly moored in the south-east
corner of the Queen's Dock (stern-on to a telephone call-box), and the
same craft, labouring in the teeth of a Cape Horn gale, present some
points of difference; that it is a far cry from 58 deg. South to the
Clyde Repair Works, and that the business of shipping is not entirely a
matter of ledgers.

Oh well! Just have to stick it, though. After all, it won't always be
hard times. Think of the long, sunny days drowsing along down the
'Trades,' of the fine times out there in 'Frisco, of joys of strenuous
action greater than the shipping clerk will ever know, even if he
should manage to hole out in three. Seventeen months! It will soon
pass, and I'll be a free man when I get back to Glasgow again.
Seventeen months, and then--then----

Ding ... dong.... Ding ... dong.... Ding dong....

Quarter to! With a sigh for the comfort of a life ashore, I rise and
dress. Through the window I see the Square, shrouded in mist, the
nearer leafless shrubs swaying in the chill wind, pavement glistening
in the flickering light of street lamps. A dismal morning to be
setting off to the sea! Portent of head winds and foul weather that we
may meet in Channel before the last of Glasgow's grime and smoke-wrack
is blown from the rigging.

A stir in the next room marks another rising. Kindly old '_Ding ...
dong_' has called a favourite brother from his rest to give me convoy
to the harbour.

Ready for the road, he comes to my room. Sleepy-eyed, yawning. "Four
o'clock! _Ugh_! Who ever heard of a man going to