wire rail. A slender but lithely active chap in a
greasy overall and jumper, to give it the Yankee name, gave me a
finger-crushing grip with his right hand, while with his left he deftly
caught and saved from immersion my kit-bag, which had fallen short in
the toss that had been given it from below. Just for an instant the
absence of visible insignia of rank made me think that he was a petty
officer of engineers, or something of the kind; then the magnetism of
his personality flowed to me through the medium of his hand-clasp, and I
knew I was looking into the eyes of a man who would not be likely to
figure for long as anything less than "Number One" on any kind of job he
ever undertook.

"You're just in time for a 'square,'" he said heartily, leading the
way to the tiny hatch and preceding me down the ladder. "You'll be
needing it, too, after that pull with nothing more than that sloppy
dish-wash kaffy-o-lay that you get at the hotel at this hour of the
morning on your stomach. Don't try to bluff me that you had anything
more. I know by sad experience. Now _I'll_ give you something that'll
stick to your ribs. What do you say to some Boston baked beans and a
'stack o' hots'? Guess I know what a 'Murican likes. Sorry my maple
syrup's gone, but here's some dope I synthesised out of melted sugar
and m'lasses--treacle, they call it over here."

Reaching the lower deck, we edged along to a transom at the end of a
table which all but filled the tiny dining-cabin.

"Shake hands with Mac," said the skipper by way of introducing me to a
tall and extremely good-looking youth in a Cardigan jacket, duffel
trousers, and sea-boots, who rose with a smile of welcome as we dropped
down beside him. "Mac's a Canuck, like myself," he went on, after asking
me if I liked my eggs "straight up" or "turned over," and passing the
order on to a diminutive Cockney with a comedian's face, who came
tripping in almost as though wafted on the "smell o' cooking" which
preceded him through the opened galley door.

"Mac learned his sailoring on his dad's yacht on Lake Ontario, and I
learned mine driving a 'deep-seagoing' side-wheel tractor on a ranch in
Alberta. Only time I was ever afloat before I became a 'Capt'in in the
King's Navee' was on a raft on the old Missouri, in Dakota; and that
isn't really being afloat, you know, for 'bout one half the water of
that limpid stream is mud and the other half catfish. A great pair of
old salts, we two--hey,