lin's, and
the Breslau timed for sixteen days between port an' port! Sixteen days,
man! She's a good boat, but eighteen is her summer time, mark you.
Sixteen was sheer flytin', kitin' nonsense, an' so I told young
Bannister.

"We've got to make it,' he said. 'Ye should not ha' sent in a three
hunder pound indent.'

"Do they look for their boats to be run on air?' I said. 'The Board's
daft.'

"'E'en tell 'em so,' he says. 'I'm a married man, an' my fourth's on the
ways now, she says.'"

"A boy--wi' red hair," Janet put in. Her own hair is the splendid
red-gold that goes with a creamy complexion.

"My word, I was an angry man that day! Forbye I was fond o' the old
Breslau, I looked for a little consideration from the Board after
twenty years' service. There was Board-meetin' on Wednesday, an' I slept
overnight in the engine-room, takin' figures to support my case. Well,
I put it fair and square before them all. 'Gentlemen,' I said, 'I've run
the Breslau eight seasons, an' I believe there's no fault to find wi' my
wark. But if ye haud to this'--I waggled the advertisement at 'em--'this
that I've never heard of it till I read it at breakfast, I do assure you
on my professional reputation, she can never do it. That is to say, she
can for a while, but at a risk no thinkin' man would run.'

"'What the deil d' ye suppose we pass your indents for?' says old
Holdock. 'Man, we're spendin' money like watter.'

"'I'll leave it in the Board's hands,' I said, 'if two hunder an'
eighty-seven pound is anything beyond right and reason for eight
months.' I might ha' saved my breath, for the Board was new since
the last election, an' there they sat, the damned deevidend-huntin'
ship-chandlers, deaf as the adders o' Scripture.

"'We must keep faith wi' the public,' said young Steiner.

"'Keep faith wi' the Breslau, then,' I said. 'She's served you well,
an' your father before you. She'll need her bottom restiffenin', an'
new bed-plates, an' turnin' out the forward boilers, an' re-turnin' all
three cylinders, an' refacin' all guides, to begin with. It's a three
months' job.'

"'Because one employee is afraid? 'says young Steiner. 'Maybe a piano in
the Chief Engineer's cabin would be more to the point.'

"I crushed my cap in my hands, an' thanked God we'd no bairns an' a bit
put by.

"'Understand, gentlemen,' I said. 'If the Breslau is made a sixteen-day
boat, ye'll find another engineer.'

"'Bannister makes no objection,' s