PART II

So let us melt and make no noise, No tear-floods nor sigh-tempests move; ’Twere profanation of our joys To tell the Laity our love.

A VALEDICTION.

It was punishing work, even though he travelled by night and camped by day; but within the limits of his vision there was no man whom Scott could call master. He was as free as Jimmy Hawkins—freer, in fact, for the Government held the Head of the Famine tied neatly to a telegraph-wire, and if Jimmy had ever regarded telegrams seriously, the death-rate of that famine would have been much higher than it was.

At the end of a few days’ crawling Scott learned something of the size of the India which he served, and it astonished him. His carts, as you know, were loaded with wheat, millet, and barley, good food-grains needing only a little grinding. But the people to whom he brought the life-giving stuffs were rice-eaters. They could hull rice in their mortars, but they knew nothing of the heavy stone querns of the North, and less of the material that the white man convoyed so laboriously. They clamoured for rice—unhusked paddy, such as they were accustomed to—and, when they found that there was none, broke away weeping from the sides of the cart. What was the use of these strange hard grains that choked their throats? They would die. And then and there very many of them kept their word. Others took their allowance, and bartered enough millet to feed a man through a week for a few handfuls of rotten rice saved by some less unfortunate. A few put their share into the rice-mortars, pounded it, and made a paste with foul water; but they were very few. Scott understood dimly that many people in the India of the South ate rice, as a rule, but he had spent his service in a grain Province, had seldom seen rice in the blade or ear, and least of all would have believed that in time of deadly need men could die at arm’s length of plenty, sooner than touch food they did not know. In vain the interpreters interpreted; in vain his two policemen showed in vigorous pantomime what should be done. The starving crept away to their bark and weeds, grubs, leaves, and clay, and left the open sacks untouched. But sometimes the women laid their phantoms of children at Scott’s feet, looking back as they staggered away.

Faiz Ullah opined it was the will of God that these foreigners should die, and it remained only to give orders to burn the dead. None the less there was no reason why the Sahib should lack his comforts, and Faiz Ullah, a campaigner of experience, had picked up a few lean goats and had added them to the procession. That they might give milk for the morning meal, he was feeding them on the good grain that these imbeciles rejected. “Yes,” said Faiz Ullah; “if the Sahib thought fit, a little milk might be given to some of the babies”; but, as the Sahib well knew, babies were cheap, and, for his own part, Faiz Ullah held that there was no Government order as to babies. Scott spoke forcefully to Faiz Ullah and the two policemen, and bade them capture goats where they could find them. This they most joyfully did, for it was a recreation, and many ownerless goats were driven in. Once fed, the poor brutes were willing enough to follow the carts, and a few days’ good food—food such as human beings died for lack of—set them in milk again.

“But I am no goatherd,” said Faiz Ullah. “It is against my _izzat_ [my honour].”

“When we cross the Bias River again we will talk of _izzat_,” Scott replied. “Till that day thou and the policemen shall be sweepers to the camp, if I give the order.”

“Thus, then, it is done,” grunted Faiz Ullah, “if the Sahib will have it so”; and he showed how a goat should be milked, while Scott stood over him.

“Now we will feed them,” said Scott; “twice a day we will feed them”; and he bowed his back to the milking, and took a horrible cramp.

When you have to keep connection unbroken between a restless mother of kids and a baby who is at the point of death, you suffer in all your system. But the babies were fed. Each morning and evening Scott would solemnly lift them out one by one from their nest of gunny-bags under the cart-tilts. There were always many who could do no more than breathe, and the milk was dropped into their toothless mouths drop by drop, with due pauses when they choked. Each morning, too, the goats were fed; and since they would straggle without a leader, and since the natives were hirelings, Scott was forced to give up riding, and pace slowly at the head of his flocks, accommodating his step to their weaknesses. All this was sufficiently absurd, and he felt the absurdity keenly; but at least he was saving life, and when the women saw that their children did not die, they made shift to eat a little of the strange foods, and crawled after the carts, blessing the master of the goats.

“Give the women something to live for,” said Scott to himself, as he sneezed in the dust of a hundred little feet, “and they’ll hang on somehow. This beats William’s condensed-milk trick all to pieces. I shall never live it down, though.”

He reached his destination very slowly, found that a rice-ship had come in from Burmah, and that stores of paddy were available; found also an overworked Englishman in charge of the shed, and, loading the carts, set back to cover the ground he had already passed. He left some of the children and half his goats at the famine-shed. For this he was not thanked by the Englishman, who had already more stray babies than he knew what to do with. Scott’s back was suppled to stooping now, and he went on with his wayside ministrations in addition to distributing the paddy. More babies and more goats were added unto him; but now some of the babies wore rags, and beads round their wrists or necks. “_That_” said the interpreter, as though Scott did not know, “signifies that their mothers hope in eventual contingency to resume them offeecially.”

“The sooner, the better,” said Scott; but at the same time he marked, with the pride of ownership, how this or that little Ramasawmy was putting on flesh like a bantam. As the paddy-carts were emptied he headed for Hawkins’s camp by the railway, timing his arrival to fit in with the dinner-hour, for it was long since he had eaten at a cloth. He had no desire to make any dramatic entry, but an accident of the sunset ordered it that when he had taken off his helmet to get the evening breeze, the low light should fall across his forehead, and he could not see what was before him; while one waiting at the tent door beheld with new eyes a young man, beautiful as Paris, a god in a halo of golden dust, walking slowly at the head of his flocks, while at his knee ran small naked Cupids. But she laughed—William, in a slate-coloured blouse, laughed consumedly till Scott, putting the best face he could upon the matter, halted his armies and bade her admire the kindergarten. It was an unseemly sight, but the proprieties had been left ages ago, with the tea-party at Amritsar Station, fifteen hundred miles to the north.

“They are coming on nicely,” said William. “We’ve only five-and-twenty here now. The women are beginning to take them away again.”

“Are you in charge of the babies, then?”

“Yes—Mrs. Jim and I. We didn’t think of goats, though. We’ve been trying condensed-milk and water.”

“Any losses?”

“More than I care to think of;” said William, with a shudder. “And you?”

Scott said nothing. There had been many little burials along his route—one cannot burn a dead baby—many mothers who had wept when they did not find again the children they had trusted to the care of the Government.

Then Hawkins came out carrying a razor, at which Scott looked hungrily, for he had a beard that he did not love. And when they sat down to dinner in the tent he told his tale in few words, as it might have been an official report. Mrs. Jim snuffled from time to time, and Jim bowed his head judicially; but William’s grey eyes were on the clean-shaven face, and it was to her that Scott seemed to appeal.

“Good for the Pauper Province!” said William, her chin on her hand, as she leaned forward among the wine-glasses. Her cheeks had fallen in, and the scar on her forehead was more prominent than ever, but the well-turned neck rose roundly as a column from the ruffle of the blouse which was the accepted evening-dress in camp.

“It was awfully absurd at times,” said Scott. “You see, I didn’t know much about milking or babies. They’ll chaff my head off, if the tale goes up North.”

“Let ’em,” said William, haughtily. “We’ve all done coolie-work since we came. I know Jack has.” This was to Hawkins’s address, and the big man smiled blandly.

“Your brother’s a highly efficient officer, William,” said he, “and I’ve done him the honour of treating him as he deserves. Remember, I write the confidential reports.”

“Then you must say that William’s worth her weight in gold,” said Mrs. Jim. “I don’t know what we should have done without her. She has been everything to us.” She dropped her hand upon William’s, which was rough with much handling of reins, and William patted it softly. Jim beamed on the company. Things were going well with his world. Three of his more grossly incompetent men had died, and their places had been filled by their betters. Every day brought the Rains nearer. They had put out the famine in five of the Eight Districts, and, after all, the death-rate had not been too heavy—things considered. He looked Scott over carefully, as an ogre looks over a man, and rejoiced in his thews and iron-hard condition.

“He’s just the least bit in the world tucked up,” said Jim to himself, “but he can do two men’s work yet.” Then he was aware that Mrs. Jim was telegraphing to him, and according to the domestic code the message ran: “A clear case. Look at them!”

He looked and listened. All that William was saying was: “What can you expect of a country where they call a _bhistee_ [a water-carrier] a _tunni-cutch?_” and all that Scott answered was: “I shall be glad to get back to the Club. Save me a dance at the Christmas Ball, won’t you?”

“It’s a far cry from here to the Lawrence Hall,” said Jim. “Better turn in early, Scott. It’s paddy-carts to-morrow; you’ll begin loading at five.”

“Aren’t you going to give Mr. Scott a single day’s rest?”

“Wish I could, Lizzie, ’Fraid I can’t. As long as he can stand up we must use him.”

“Well, I’ve had one Europe evening, at least. By Jove, I’d nearly forgotten! What do I do about those babies of mine?”

“Leave them here,” said William—“we are in charge of that—and as many goats as you can spare. I must learn how to milk now.”

“If you care to get up early enough to-morrow I’ll show you. I have to milk, you see. Half of ’em have beads and things round their necks. You must be careful not to take ’em off; in case the mothers turn up.”

“You forget I’ve had some experience here.”

“I hope to goodness you won’t overdo.” Scott’s voice was unguarded.

“I’ll take care of her,” said Mrs. Jim, telegraphing hundred-word messages as she carried William off; while Jim gave Scott his orders for the coming campaign. It was very late—nearly nine o’clock.

“Jim, you’re a brute,” said his wife, that night; and the Head of the Famine chuckled.

“Not a bit of it, dear. I remember doing the first Jandiala Settlement for the sake of a girl in a crinoline, and she was slender, Lizzie. I’ve never done as good a piece of work since. _He_’ll work like a demon.”

“But you might have given him one day.”

“And let things come to a head now? No, dear; it’s their happiest time.”

“I don’t believe either of the darlings know what’s the matter with them. Isn’t it beautiful? Isn’t it lovely?”

“Getting up at three to learn to milk, bless her heart! Oh, ye Gods, why must we grow old and fat?”

“She’s a darling. She has done more work under me—”

“Under _you!_ The day after she came she was in charge and you were her subordinate. You’ve stayed there ever since; she manages you almost as well as you manage me.”

“She doesn’t, and that’s why I love her. She’s as direct as a man—as her brother.”

“Her brother’s weaker than she is. He’s always to me for orders; but he’s honest, and a glutton for work. I confess I’m rather fond of William, and if I had a daughter—”

The talk ended. Far away in the Derajat was a child’s grave more than twenty years old, and neither Jim nor his wife spoke of it any more.

“All the same, you’re responsible,” Jim added, a moment’s silence.

“Bless ’em!” said Mrs. Jim, sleepily.

Before the stars paled, Scott, who slept in an empty cart, waked and went about his work in silence; it seemed at that hour unkind to rouse Faiz Ullah and the interpreter. His head being close to the ground, he did not hear William till she stood over him in the dingy old riding-habit, her eyes still heavy with sleep, a cup of tea and a piece of toast in her hands. There was a baby on the ground, squirming on a piece of blanket, and a six-year-old child peered over Scott’s shoulder.

“Hai, you little rip,” said Scott, “how the deuce do you expect to get your rations if you aren’t quiet?”

A cool white hand steadied the brat, who forthwith choked as the milk gurgled into his mouth.

“Mornin’,” said the milker. “You’ve no notion how these little fellows can wriggle.”

“Oh, yes, I have.” She whispered, because the world was asleep. “Only I feed them with a spoon or a rag. Yours are fatter than mine. And you’ve been doing this day after day?” The voice was almost lost.

“Yes; it was absurd. Now you try,” he said, giving place to the girl. “Look out! A goat’s not a cow.”

The goat protested against the amateur, and there was a scuffle, in which Scott snatched up the baby. Then it was all to do over again, and William laughed softly and merrily. She managed, however, to feed two babies, and a third.

“Don’t the little beggars take it well?” said Scott. “I trained ’em.”

They were very busy and interested, when lo! it was broad daylight, and before they knew, the camp was awake, and they kneeled among the goats, surprised by the day, both flushed to the temples. Yet all the round world rolling up out of the darkness might have heard and seen all that had passed between them.

“Oh,” said William, unsteadily, snatching up the tea and toast, “I had this made for you. It’s stone-cold now. I thought you mightn’t have anything ready so early. Better not drink it. It’s—it’s stone-cold.”

“That’s awfully kind of you. It’s just right. It’s awfully good of you, really. I’ll leave my kids and goats with you and Mrs. Jim, and, of course, any one in camp can show you about the milking.”

“Of course,” said William; and she grew pinker and pinker and statelier and more stately, as she strode back to her tent, fanning herself with the saucer.

There were shrill lamentations through the camp when the elder children saw their nurse move off without them. Faiz Ullah unbent so far as to jest with the policemen, and Scott turned purple with shame because Hawkins, already in the saddle, roared.

A child escaped from the care of Mrs. Jim, and, running like a rabbit, clung to Scott’s boot, William pursuing with long, easy strides.

“I will not go—I will not go!” shrieked the child, twining his feet round Scott’s ankle. “They will kill me here. I do not know these people.”

“I say,” said Scott, in broken Tamil, “I say, she will do you no harm. Go with her and be well fed.”

“Come!” said William, panting, with a wrathful glance at Scott, who stood helpless and, as it were, hamstrung.

“Go back,” said Scott quickly to William. “I’ll send the little chap over in a minute.”

The tone of authority had its effect, but in a way Scott did not exactly intend. The boy loosened his grasp, and said with gravity: “I did not know the woman was thine. I will go.” Then he cried to his companions, a mob of three-, four-, and five-year-olds waiting on the success of his venture ere they stampeded: “Go back and eat. It is our man’s woman. She will obey his orders.”

Jim collapsed where he sat; Faiz Ullah and the two policemen grinned; and Scott’s orders to the cartmen flew like hail.

“That is the custom of the Sahibs when truth is told in their presence,” said Faiz Ullah. “The time comes that I must seek new service. Young wives, especially such as speak our language and have knowledge of the ways of the Police, make great trouble for honest butlers in the matter of weekly accounts.”

What William thought of it all she did not say, but when her brother, ten days later, came to camp for orders, and heard of Scott’s performances, he said, laughing: “Well, that settles it. He’ll be _Bakri_ Scott to the end of his days.” (_Bakri_ in the Northern vernacular, means a goat.) “What a lark! I’d have given a month’s pay to have seen him nursing famine babies. I fed some with _conjee_ [rice-water], but that was all right.”

“It’s perfectly disgusting,” said his sister, with blazing eyes. “A man does something like—like that—and all you other men think of is to give him an absurd nickname, and then you laugh and think it’s funny.”

“Ah,” said Mrs. Jim, sympathetically.

“Well, _you_ can’t talk, William. You christened little Miss Demby the Button-quail, last cold weather; you know you did. India’s the land of nicknames.”

“That’s different,” William replied. “She was only a girl, and she hadn’t done anything except walk like a quail, and she _does_. But it isn’t fair to make fun of a man.”

“Scott won’t care,” said Martyn. “You can’t get a rise out of old Scotty. I’ve been trying for eight years, and you’ve only known him for three. How does he look?”

“He looks very well,” said William, and went away with a flushed cheek. “_Bakri_ Scott, indeed!” Then she laughed to herself, for she knew her country. “But it will be _Bakri_ all the same”; and she repeated it under her breath several times slowly, whispering it into favour.

When he returned to his duties on the railway, Martyn spread the name far and wide among his associates, so that Scott met it as he led his paddy-carts to war. The natives believed it to be some English title of honour, and the cart-drivers used it in all simplicity till Faiz Ullah, who did not approve of foreign japes, broke their heads. There was very little time for milking now, except at the big camps, where Jim had extended Scott’s idea and was feeding large flocks on the useless northern grains. Sufficient paddy had come now into the Eight Districts to hold the people safe, if it were only distributed quickly, and for that purpose no one was better than the big Canal officer, who never lost his temper, never gave an unnecessary order, and never questioned an order given. Scott pressed on, saving his cattle, washing their galled necks daily, so that no time should be lost on the road; reported himself with his rice at the minor famine-sheds, unloaded, and went back light by forced night-march to the next distributing centre, to find Hawkins’s unvarying telegram: “Do it again.” And he did it again and again, and yet again, while Jim Hawkins, fifty miles away, marked off on a big map the tracks of his wheels gridironing the stricken lands. Others did well—Hawkins reported at the end they all did well—but Scott was the most excellent, for he kept good coined rupees by him, settled for his own cart-repairs on the spot, and ran to meet all sorts of unconsidered extras, trusting to be recouped later on. Theoretically, the Government should have paid for every shoe and linchpin, for every hand employed in the loading; but Government vouchers cash themselves slowly, and intelligent and efficient clerks write at great length, contesting unauthorised expenditures of eight annas. The man who wants to make his work a success must draw on his own bank-account of money or other things as he goes.

“I told you he’d work,” said Jimmy to his wife, at the end of six weeks. “He’s been in sole charge of a couple of thousand men up north, on the Mosuhl Canal, for a year; but he gives less trouble than young Martyn with his ten constables; and I’m morally certain—only Government doesn’t recognise moral obligations—he’s spent about half his pay to grease his wheels. Look at this, Lizzie, for one week’s work! Forty miles in two days with twelve carts; two days’ halt building a famine-shed for young Rogers. (Rogers ought to have built it himself, the idiot!) Then forty miles back again, loading six carts on the way, and distributing all Sunday. Then in the evening he pitches in a twenty-page Demi-Official to me, saying the people where he is might be ‘advantageously employed on relief-work,’ and suggesting that he put ’em to work on some broken-down old reservoir he’s discovered, so as to have a good water-supply when the Rains break. He thinks he can cauk the dam in a fortnight. Look at his marginal sketches—aren’t they clear and good? I knew he was _pukka_, but I didn’t know he was as _pukka_ as this!”

“I must show these to William,” said Mrs. Jim. “The child’s wearing herself out among the babies.”

“Not more than you are, dear. Well, another two months ought to see us out of the wood. I’m sorry it’s not in my power to recommend you for a V. C.”

William sat late in her tent that night, reading through page after page of the square handwriting, patting the sketches of proposed repairs to the reservoir, and wrinkling her eyebrows over the columns of figures of estimated water-supply. “And he finds time to do all this,” she cried to herself, “and—well, I also was present. I’ve saved one or two babies.”

She dreamed for the twentieth time of the god in the golden dust, and woke refreshed to feed loathsome black children, scores of them, wastrels picked up by the wayside, their bones almost breaking their skin, terrible and covered with sores.

Scott was not allowed to leave his cart-work, but his letter was duly forwarded to the Government, and he had the consolation, not rare in India, of knowing that another man was reaping where he had sown. That also was discipline profitable to the soul.

“He’s much too good to waste on canals,” said Jimmy. “Any one can oversee coolies. You needn’t be angry, William; he can—but I need my pearl among bullock-drivers, and I’ve transferred him to the Khanda district, where he’ll have it all to do over again. He should be marching now.

“He’s _not_ a coolie,” said William, furiously. “He ought to be doing his regulation work.”

“He’s the best man in his service, and that’s saying a good deal; but if you _must_ use razors to cut grindstones, why, I prefer the best cutlery.”

“Isn’t it almost time we saw him again?” said Mrs. Jim. “I’m sure the poor boy hasn’t had a respectable meal for a month. He probably sits on a cart and eats sardines with his fingers.”

“All in good time, dear. Duty before decency—wasn’t it Mr. Chucks said that?”

“No; it was Midshipman Easy,” William laughed. “I sometimes wonder how it will feel to dance or listen to a band again, or sit under a roof. I can’t believe I ever wore a ball-frock in my life.”

“One minute,” said Mrs. Jim, who was thinking. “If he goes to Khanda, he passes within five miles of us. Of course he’ll ride in.”

“Oh, no, he won’t,” said William.

“How do you know, dear?”

“It will take him off his work. He won’t have time.”

“He’ll make it,” said Mrs. Jim, with a twinkle.

“It depends on his own judgment. There’s absolutely no reason why he shouldn’t, if he thinks fit,” said Jim.

“He won’t see fit,” William replied, without sorrow or emotion. “It wouldn’t be him if he did.”

“One certainly gets to know people rather well in times like these,” said Jim, drily; but William’s face was serene as ever, and even as she prophesied, Scott did not appear.

The Rains fell at last, late, but heavily; and the dry, gashed earth was red mud, and servants killed snakes in the camp, where every one was weather-bound for a fortnight—all except Hawkins, who took horse and plashed about in the wet, rejoicing. Now the Government decreed that seed-grain should be distributed to the people, as well as advances of money for the purchase of new oxen; and the white men were doubly worked for this new duty, while William skipped from brick to brick laid down on the trampled mud, and dosed her charges with warming medicines that made them rub their little round stomachs; and the milch goats throve on the rank grass. There was never a word from Scott in the Khanda district, away to the southeast, except the regular telegraphic report to Hawkins. The rude country roads had disappeared; his drivers were half mutinous; one of Martyn’s loaned policemen had died of cholera; and Scott was taking thirty grains of quinine a day to fight the fever that comes with the rain: but those were things Scott did not consider necessary to report. He was, as usual, working from a base of supplies on a railway line, to cover a circle of fifteen miles radius, and since full loads were impossible, he took quarter-loads, and toiled four times as hard by consequence; for he did not choose to risk an epidemic which might have grown uncontrollable by assembling villagers in thousands at the relief-sheds. It was cheaper to take Government bullocks, work them to death, and leave them to the crows in the wayside sloughs.

That was the time when eight years of clean living and hard condition told, though a man’s head were ringing like a bell from the cinchona, and the earth swayed under his feet when he stood and under his bed when he slept. If Hawkins had seen fit to make him a bullock-driver, that, he thought, was entirely Hawkins’s own affair. There were men in the North who would know what he had done; men of thirty years’ service in his own department who would say that it was “not half bad”; and above, immeasurably above, all men of all grades, there was William in the thick of the fight, who would approve because she understood. He had so trained his mind that it would hold fast to the mechanical routine of the day, though his own voice sounded strange in his own ears, and his hands, when he wrote, grew large as pillows or small as peas at the end of his wrists. That steadfastness bore his body to the telegraph-office at the railway-station, and dictated a telegram to Hawkins saying that the Khanda district was, in his judgment, now safe, and he “waited further orders.”

The Madrassee telegraph-clerk did not approve of a large, gaunt man falling over him in a dead faint, not so much because of the weight as because of the names and blows that Faiz Ullah dealt him when he found the body rolled under a bench. Then Faiz Ullah took blankets, quilts, and coverlets where he found them, and lay down under them at his master’s side, and bound his arms with a tent-rope, and filled him with a horrible stew of herbs, and set the policeman to fight him when he wished to escape from the intolerable heat of his coverings, and shut the door of the telegraph-office to keep out the curious for two nights and one day; and when a light engine came down the line, and Hawkins kicked in the door, Scott hailed him weakly but in a natural voice, and Faiz Ullah stood back and took all the credit.

“For two nights, Heaven-born, he was _pagal_” said Faiz Ullah. “Look at my nose, and consider the eye of the policeman. He beat us with his bound hands; but we sat upon him, Heaven-born, and though his words were _tez_, we sweated him. Heaven-born, never has been such a sweat! He is weaker now than a child; but the fever has gone out of him, by the grace of God. There remains only my nose and the eye of the constabeel. Sahib, shall I ask for my dismissal because my Sahib has beaten me?” And Faiz Ullah laid his long thin hand carefully on Scott’s chest to be sure that the fever was all gone, ere he went out to open tinned soups and discourage such as laughed at his swelled nose.

“The district’s all right,” Scott whispered. “It doesn’t make any difference. You got my wire? I shall be fit in a week. ’Can’t understand how it happened. I shall be fit in a few days.”

“You’re coming into camp with us,” said Hawkins.

“But look here—but—”

“It’s all over except the shouting. We sha’n’t need you Punjabis any more. On my honour, we sha’n’t. Martyn goes back in a few weeks; Arbuthnot’s returned already; Ellis and Clay are putting the last touches to a new feeder-line the Government’s built as relief-work. Morten’s dead—he was a Bengal man, though; you wouldn’t know him. ’Pon my word, you and Will—Miss Martyn—seem to have come through it as well as anybody.”

“Oh, how is she, by-the-way?” The voice went up and down as he spoke.

“Going strong when I left her. The Roman Catholic Missions are adopting the unclaimed babies to turn them into little priests; the Basil Mission is taking some, and the mothers are taking the rest. You should hear the little beggars howl when they’re sent away from William. She’s pulled down a bit, but so are we all. Now, when do you suppose you’ll be able to move?”

“I can’t come into camp in this state. I won’t,” he replied pettishly.

“Well, you _are_ rather a sight, but from what I gathered there it seemed to me they’d be glad to see you under any conditions. I’ll look over your work here, if you like, for a couple of days, and you can pull yourself together while Faiz Ullah feeds you up.”

Scott could walk dizzily by the time Hawkins’s inspection was ended, and he flushed all over when Jim said of his work that it was “not half bad,” and volunteered, further, that he had considered Scott his right-hand man through the famine, and would feel it his duty to say as much officially.

So they came back by rail to the old camp; but there were no crowds near it; the long fires in the trenches were dead and black, and the famine-sheds were almost empty.

“You see!” said Jim. “There isn’t much more to do. Better ride up and see the wife. They’ve pitched a tent for you. Dinner’s at seven. I’ve some work here.”

Riding at a foot-pace, Faiz Ullah by his stirrup, Scott came to William in the brown-calico riding-habit, sitting at the dining-tent door, her hands in her lap, white as ashes, thin and worn, with no lustre in her hair. There did not seem to be any Mrs. Jim on the horizon, and all that William could say was: “My word, how pulled down you look!”

“I’ve had a touch of fever. You don’t look very well yourself.”

“Oh, I’m fit enough. We’ve stamped it out. I suppose you know?”

Scott nodded. “We shall all be returned in a few weeks. Hawkins told me.”

“Before Christmas, Mrs. Jim says. Sha’n’t you be glad to go back? I can smell the wood-smoke already”; William sniffed. “We shall be in time for all the Christmas doings. I don’t suppose even the Punjab Government would be base enough to transfer Jack till the new year?”

“It seems hundreds of years ago—the Punjab and all that—doesn’t it? Are you glad you came?”

“Now it’s all over, yes. It has been ghastly here, though. You know we had to sit still and do nothing, and Sir Jim was away so much.”

“Do nothing! How did you get on with the milking?”

“I managed it somehow—after you taught me.”

Then the talk stopped with an almost audible jar. Still no Mrs. Jim.

“That reminds me, I owe you fifty rupees for the condensed-milk. I thought perhaps you’d be coming here when you were transferred to the Khanda district, and I could pay you then; but you didn’t.”

“I passed within five miles of the camp, but it was in the middle of a march, you see, and the carts were breaking down every few minutes, and I couldn’t get ’em over the ground till ten o’clock that night. I wanted to come awfully. You knew I did, didn’t you?”

“I—believe—I—did,” said William, facing him with level eyes. She was no longer white.

“Did you understand?”

“Why you didn’t ride in? Of course I did.”

“Why?”

“Because you couldn’t, of course. I knew that.”

“Did you care?”

“If you had come in—but I knew you wouldn’t—but if you _had_, I should have cared a great deal. You know I should.”

“Thank God I didn’t! Oh, but I wanted to! I couldn’t trust myself to ride in front of the carts, because I kept edging ’em over here, don’t you know?”

“I knew you wouldn’t,” said William, contentedly. “Here’s your fifty.”

Scott bent forward and kissed the hand that held the greasy notes. Its fellow patted him awkwardly but very tenderly on the head.

“And _you_ knew, too, didn’t you?” said William, in a new voice.

“No, on my honour, I didn’t. I hadn’t the—the cheek to expect anything of the kind, except... I say, were you out riding anywhere the day I passed by to Khanda?”

William nodded, and smiled after the manner of an angel surprised in a good deed.

“Then it was just a speck I saw of your habit in the—”

“Palm-grove on the Southern cart-road. I saw your helmet when you came up from the mullah by the temple—just enough to be sure that you were all right. D’ you care?”

This time Scott did not kiss her hand, for they were in the dusk of the dining-tent, and, because William’s knees were trembling under her, she had to sit down in the nearest chair, where she wept long and happily, her head on her arms; and when Scott imagined that it would be well to comfort her, she needing nothing of the kind, she ran to her own tent; and Scott went out into the world, and smiled upon it largely and idiotically. But when Faiz Ullah brought him a drink, he found it necessary to support one hand with the other, or the good whisky and soda would have been spilled abroad. There are fevers and fevers.

But it was worse—much worse—the strained, eye-shirking talk at dinner till the servants had withdrawn, and worst of all when Mrs. Jim, who had been on the edge of weeping from the soup down, kissed Scott and William, and they drank one whole bottle of champagne, hot, because there was no ice, and Scott and William sat outside the tent in the starlight till Mrs. Jim drove them in for fear of more fever.

Apropos of these things and some others William said: “Being engaged is abominable, because, you see, one has no official position. We must be thankful we’ve lots of things to do.”

“Things to do!” said Jim, when that was reported to him. “They’re neither of them any good any more. I can’t get five hours’ work a day out of Scott. He’s in the clouds half the time.”

“Oh, but they’re so beautiful to watch, Jimmy. It will break my heart when they go. Can’t you do anything for him?”

“I’ve given the Government the impression—at least, I hope I have—that he personally conducted the entire famine. But all he wants is to get on to the Luni Canal Works, and William’s just as bad. Have you ever heard ’em talking of barrage and aprons and wastewater? It’s their style of spooning, I suppose.”

Mrs. Jim smiled tenderly. “Ah, that’s in the intervals—bless ’em.”

And so Love ran about the camp unrebuked in broad daylight, while men picked up the pieces and put them neatly away of the Famine in the Eight Districts.

Morning brought the penetrating chill of the Northern December, the layers of wood-smoke, the dusty grey-blue of the tamarisks, the domes of ruined tombs, and all the smell of the white Northern plains, as the mail-train ran on to the mile-long Sutlej Bridge. William, wrapped in a _poshteen_—a silk-embroidered sheepskin jacket trimmed with rough astrakhan—looked out with moist eyes and nostrils that dilated joyously. The South of pagodas and palm-trees, the overpopulated Hindu South, was done with. Here was the land she knew and loved, and before her lay the good life she understood, among folk of her own caste and mind.

They were picking them up at almost every station now—men and women coming in for the Christmas Week, with racquets, with bundles of polo-sticks, with dear and bruised cricket-bats, with fox-terriers and saddles. The greater part of them wore jackets like William’s, for the Northern cold is as little to be trifled with as the Northern heat. And William was among them and of them, her hands deep in her pockets, her collar turned up over her ears, stamping her feet on the platforms as she walked up and down to get warm, visiting from carriage to carriage and everywhere being congratulated. Scott was with the bachelors at the far end of the train, where they chaffed him mercilessly about feeding babies and milking goats; but from time to time he would stroll up to William’s window, and murmur: “Good enough, isn’t it?” and William would answer with sighs of pure delight: “Good enough, indeed.” The large open names of the home towns were good to listen to. Umballa, Ludianah, Phillour, Jullundur, they rang like the coming marriage-bells in her ears, and William felt deeply and truly sorry for all strangers and outsiders—visitors, tourists, and those fresh-caught for the service of the country.

It was a glorious return, and when the bachelors gave the Christmas Ball, William was, unofficially, you might say, the chief and honoured guest among the Stewards, who could make things very pleasant for their friends. She and Scott danced nearly all the dances together, and sat out the rest in the big dark gallery overlooking the superb teak floor, where the uniforms blazed, and the spurs clinked, and the new frocks and four hundred dancers went round and round till the draped flags on the pillars flapped and bellied to the whirl of it.

About midnight half a dozen men who did not care for dancing came over from the Club to play “Waits,” and that was a surprise the Stewards had arranged—before any one knew what had happened, the band stopped, and hidden voices broke into “Good King Wenceslaus,” and William in the gallery hummed and beat time with her foot:

“Mark my footsteps well, my page, Tread thou in them boldly. Thou shalt feel the winter’s rage Freeze thy blood less coldly!”

“Oh, I hope they are going to give us another! Isn’t it pretty, coming out of the dark in that way? Look—look down. There’s Mrs. Gregory wiping her eyes!”

“It’s like Home, rather,” said Scott. “I remember—”

“Hsh! Listen!—dear.” And it began again:

“When shepherds watched their flocks by night—”

“A-h-h!” said William, drawing closer to Scott.

All seated on the ground, The Angel of the Lord came down, And glory shone around. ‘Fear not,’ said he (for mighty dread Had seized their troubled mind); ‘Glad tidings of great joy I bring To you and all mankind.’

This time it was William that wiped her eyes.

･007

A locomotive is, next to a marine engine, the most sensitive thing man ever made; and No. ･007, besides being sensitive, was new. The red paint was hardly dry on his spotless bumper-bar, his headlight shone like a fireman’s helmet, and his cab might have been a hard-wood-finish parlour. They had run him into the round-house after his trial—he had said good-bye to his best friend in the shops, the overhead travelling-crane—the big world was just outside; and the other locos were taking stock of him. He looked at the semicircle of bold, unwinking headlights, heard the low purr and mutter of the steam mounting in the gauges—scornful hisses of contempt as a slack valve lifted a little—and would have given a month’s oil for leave to crawl through his own driving-wheels into the brick ash-pit beneath him. ･007 was an eight-wheeled “American” loco, slightly different from others of his type, and as he stood he was worth ten thousand dollars on the Company’s books. But if you had bought him at his own valuation, after half an hour’s waiting in the darkish, echoing round-house, you would have saved exactly nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine dollars and ninety-eight cents.

A heavy Mogul freight, with a short cow-catcher and a fire-box that came down within three inches of the rail, began the impolite game, speaking to a Pittsburgh Consolidation, who was visiting.

“Where did this thing blow in from?” he asked, with a dreamy puff of light steam.

“it’s all I can do to keep track of our makes,” was the answer, “without lookin’ after _your_ back-numbers. Guess it’s something Peter Cooper left over when he died.”

･007 quivered; his steam was getting up, but he held his tongue. Even a hand-car knows what sort of locomotive it was that Peter Cooper experimented upon in the far-away Thirties. It carried its coal and water in two apple-barrels, and was not much bigger than a bicycle.

Then up and spoke a small, newish switching-engine, with a little step in front of his bumper-timber, and his wheels so close together that he looked like a broncho getting ready to buck.

“Something’s wrong with the road when a Pennsylvania gravel-pusher tells us anything about our stock, _I_ think. That kid’s all right. Eustis designed him, and Eustis designed me. Ain’t that good enough?”

･007 could have carried the switching-loco round the yard in his tender, but he felt grateful for even this little word of consolation.

“We don’t use hand-cars on the Pennsylvania,” said the Consolidation. “That—er—peanut-stand is old enough and ugly enough to speak for himself.”

“He hasn’t bin spoken to yet. He’s bin spoke _at_. Hain’t ye any manners on the Pennsylvania?” said the switching-loco.

“You ought to be in the yard, Poney,” said the Mogul, severely. “We’re all long-haulers here.”

“That’s what you think,” the little fellow replied. “You’ll know more ’fore the night’s out. I’ve bin down to Track 17, and the freight there—oh, Christmas!”

“I’ve trouble enough in my own division,” said a lean, light suburban loco with very shiny brake-shoes. “My commuters wouldn’t rest till they got a parlourcar. They’ve hitched it back of all, and it hauls worsen a snow-plough. I’ll snap her off someday sure, and then they’ll blame every one except their foolselves. They’ll be askin’ me to haul a vestibuled next!”

“They made you in New Jersey, didn’t they?” said Poney. “Thought so. Commuters and truck-wagons ain’t any sweet haulin’, but I tell _you_ they’re a heap better ’n cuttin’ out refrigerator-cars or oil-tanks. Why, I’ve hauled—”

“Haul! You?” said the Mogul, contemptuously. “It’s all you can do to bunt a cold-storage car up the yard. Now, I—” he paused a little to let the words sink in—“I handle the Flying Freight—e-leven cars worth just anything you please to mention. On the stroke of eleven I pull out; and I’m timed for thirty-five an hour. Costly-perishable-fragile, immediate—that’s me! Suburban traffic’s only but one degree better than switching. Express freight’s what pays.”

“Well, I ain’t given to blowing, as a rule,” began the Pittsburgh Consolidation.

“No? You was sent in here because you grunted on the grade,” Poney interrupted.

“Where I grunt, you’d lie down, Poney: but, as I was saying, I don’t blow much. Notwithstandin’, _if_ you want to see freight that is freight moved lively, you should see me warbling through the Alleghanies with thirty-seven ore-cars behind me, and my brakemen fightin’ tramps so’s they can’t attend to my tooter. I have to do all the holdin’ back then, and, though I say it, I’ve never had a load get away from me yet. _No_, sir. Haulin’s’s one thing, but judgment and discretion’s another. You want judgment in my business.”

“Ah! But—but are you not paralysed by a sense of your overwhelming responsibilities?” said a curious, husky voice from a corner.

“Who’s that?” ･007 whispered to the Jersey commuter.

“Compound—experiment—N.G. She’s bin switchin’ in the B. & A. yards for six months, when she wasn’t in the shops. She’s economical (_I_ call it mean) in her coal, but she takes it out in repairs. Ahem! I presume you found Boston somewhat isolated, madam, after your New York season?”

“I am never so well occupied as when I am alone.” The Compound seemed to be talking from half-way up her smoke-stack.

“Sure,” said the irreverent Poney, under his breath. “They don’t hanker after her any in the yard.”

“But, with my constitution and temperament—my work lies in Boston—I find your _outrecuidance_—”

“Outer which?” said the Mogul freight. “Simple cylinders are good enough for me.”

“Perhaps I should have said _faroucherie_,” hissed the Compound.

“I don’t hold with any make of papier-mache wheel,” the Mogul insisted.

The Compound sighed pityingly, and said no more.

“Git ’em all shapes in this world, don’t ye?” said Poney, “that’s Mass’chusetts all over. They half start, an’ then they stick on a dead-centre, an’ blame it all on other folk’s ways o’ treatin’ them. Talkin’ o’ Boston, Comanche told me, last night, he had a hot-box just beyond the Newtons, Friday. That was why, _he_ says, the Accommodation was held up. Made out no end of a tale, Comanche did.”

“If I’d heard that in the shops, with my boiler out for repairs, I’d know ’t was one o’ Comanche’s lies,” the New Jersey commuter snapped. “Hot-box! Him! What happened was they’d put an extra car on, and he just lay down on the grade and squealed. They had to send 127 to help him through. Made it out a hotbox, did he? Time before that he said he was ditched! Looked me square in the headlight and told me that as cool as—as a water-tank in a cold wave. Hot-box! You ask 127 about Comanche’s hot-box. Why, Comanche he was side-tracked, and 127 (_he_ was just about as mad as they make ’em on account o’ being called out at ten o’clock at night) took hold and snapped her into Boston in seventeen minutes. Hot-box! Hot fraud! that’s what Comanche is.”

Then ･007 put both drivers and his pilot into it, as the saying is, for he asked what sort of thing a hot-box might be?

“Paint my bell sky-blue!” said Poney, the switcher. “Make me a surface-railroad loco with a hard-wood skirtin’-board round my wheels. Break me up and cast me into five-cent sidewalk-fakirs’ mechanical toys! Here’s an eight-wheel coupled ’American’ don’t know what a hot-box is! Never heard of an emergency-stop either, did ye? Don’t know what ye carry jack-screws for? You’re too innocent to be left alone with your own tender. Oh, you—you flatcar!”

There was a roar of escaping steam before any one could answer, and ･007 nearly blistered his paint off with pure mortification.

“A hot-box,” began the Compound, picking and choosing her words as though they were coal, “a hotbox is the penalty exacted from inexperience by haste. Ahem!”

“Hot-box!” said the Jersey Suburban. “It’s the price you pay for going on the tear. It’s years since I’ve had one. It’s a disease that don’t attack shorthaulers, as a rule.”

“We never have hot-boxes on the Pennsylvania,” said the Consolidation. “They get ’em in New York—same as nervous prostration.”

“Ah, go home on a ferry-boat,” said the Mogul. “You think because you use worse grades than our road ’u’d allow, you’re a kind of Alleghany angel. Now, I’ll tell you what you... Here’s my folk. Well, I can’t stop. See you later, perhaps.”

He rolled forward majestically to the turn-table, and swung like a man-of-war in a tideway, till he picked up his track. “But as for you, you pea-green swiveling’ coffee-pot [this to ･007], you go out and learn something before you associate with those who’ve made more mileage in a week than you’ll roll up in a year. Costly-perishable-fragile immediate—that’s me! S’ long.”

“Split my tubes if that’s actin’ polite to a new member o’ the Brotherhood,” said Poney. “There wasn’t any call to trample on ye like that. But manners was left out when Moguls was made. Keep up your fire, kid, an’ burn your own smoke. ’Guess we’ll all be wanted in a minute.”

Men were talking rather excitedly in the roundhouse. One man, in a dingy jersey, said that he hadn’t any locomotives to waste on the yard. Another man, with a piece of crumpled paper in his hand, said that the yard-master said that he was to say that if the other man said anything, he (the other man) was to shut his head. Then the other man waved his arms, and wanted to know if he was expected to keep locomotives in his hip-pocket. Then a man in a black Prince Albert, without a collar, came up dripping, for it was a hot August night, and said that what _he_ said went; and between the three of them the locomotives began to go, too—first the Compound; then the Consolidation; then ･007.

Now, deep down in his fire-box, ･007 had cherished a hope that as soon as his trial was done, he would be led forth with songs and shoutings, and attached to a green-and-chocolate vestibuled flyer, under charge of a bold and noble engineer, who would pat him on his back, and weep over him, and call him his Arab steed. (The boys in the shops where he was built used to read wonderful stories of railroad life, and ･007 expected things to happen as he had heard.) But there did not seem to be many vestibuled fliers in the roaring, rumbling, electric-lighted yards, and his engineer only said:

“Now, what sort of a fool-sort of an injector has Eustis loaded on to this rig this time?” And he put the lever over with an angry snap, crying: “Am I supposed to switch with this thing, hey?”

The collarless man mopped his head, and replied that, in the present state of the yard and freight and a few other things, the engineer would switch and keep on switching till the cows came home. ･007 pushed out gingerly, his heart in his headlight, so nervous that the clang of his own bell almost made him jump the track. Lanterns waved, or danced up and down, before and behind him; and on every side, six tracks deep, sliding backward and forward, with clashings of couplers and squeals of hand-brakes, were cars—more cars than ･007 had dreamed of. There were oil-cars, and hay-cars, and stock-cars full of lowing beasts, and ore-cars, and potato-cars with stovepipe-ends sticking out in the middle; cold-storage and refrigerator cars dripping ice water on the tracks; ventilated fruit—and milk-cars; flatcars with truck-wagons full of market-stuff; flat-cars loaded with reapers and binders, all red and green and gilt under the sizzling electric lights; flat-cars piled high with strong-scented hides, pleasant hemlock-plank, or bundles of shingles; flat-cars creaking to the weight of thirty-ton castings, angle-irons, and rivet-boxes for some new bridge; and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of box-cars loaded, locked, and chalked. Men—hot and angry—crawled among and between and under the thousand wheels; men took flying jumps through his cab, when he halted for a moment; men sat on his pilot as he went forward, and on his tender as he returned; and regiments of men ran along the tops of the box-cars beside him, screwing down brakes, waving their arms, and crying curious things.

He was pushed forward a foot at a time; whirled backward, his rear drivers clinking and clanking, a quarter of a mile; jerked into a switch (yard-switches are _very_ stubby and unaccommodating), bunted into a Red D, or Merchant’s Transport car, and, with no hint or knowledge of the weight behind him, started up anew. When his load was fairly on the move, three or four cars would be cut off, and ･007 would bound forward, only to be held hiccupping on the brake. Then he would wait a few minutes, watching the whirled lanterns, deafened with the clang of the bells, giddy with the vision of the sliding cars, his brake-pump panting forty to the minute, his front coupler lying sideways on his cow-catcher, like a tired dog’s tongue in his mouth, and the whole of him covered with half-burnt coal-dust.

“’Tisn’t so easy switching with a straight-backed tender,” said his little friend of the round-house, bustling by at a trot. “But you’re comin’ on pretty fair. Ever seen a flyin’ switch? No? Then watch me.”

Poney was in charge of a dozen heavy flat-cars. Suddenly he shot away from them with a sharp “_Whutt!_” A switch opened in the shadows ahead; he turned up it like a rabbit as it snapped behind him, and the long line of twelve-foot-high lumber jolted on into the arms of a full-sized road-loco, who acknowledged receipt with a dry howl.

“My man’s reckoned the smartest in the yard at that trick,” he said, returning. “Gives me cold shivers when another fool tries it, though. That’s where my short wheel-base comes in. Like as not you’d have your tender scraped off if _you_ tried it.”

･007 had no ambitions that way, and said so.

“No? Of course this ain’t your regular business, but say, don’t you think it’s interestin’? Have you seen the yard-master? Well, he’s the greatest man on earth, an’ don’t you forget it. When are we through? Why, kid, it’s always like this, day _an_’ night—Sundays an’ week-days. See that thirty-car freight slidin’ in four, no, five tracks off? She’s all mixed freight, sent here to be sorted out into straight trains. That’s why we’re cuttin’ out the cars one by one.” He gave a vigorous push to a west-bound car as he spoke, and started back with a little snort of surprise, for the car was an old friend—an M. T. K. box-car.

“Jack my drivers, but it’s Homeless Kate! Why, Kate, ain’t there _no_ gettin’ you back to your friends? There’s forty chasers out for you from your road, if there’s one. Who’s holdin’ you now?”

“Wish I knew,” whimpered Homeless Kate. “I belong in Topeka, but I’ve bin to Cedar Rapids; I’ve bin to Winnipeg; I’ve bin to Newport News; I’ve bin all down the old Atlanta and West Point; an’ I’ve bin to Buffalo. Maybe I’ll fetch up at Haverstraw. I’ve only bin out ten months, but I’m homesick—I’m just achin’ homesick.”

“Try Chicago, Katie,” said the switching-loco; and the battered old car lumbered down the track, jolting: “I want to be in Kansas when the sunflowers bloom.”

“Yard’s full o’ Homeless Kates an’ Wanderin’ Willies,” he explained to ･007. “I knew an old Fitchburg flat-car out seventeen months; an’ one of ours was gone fifteen ’fore ever we got track of her. Dunno quite how our men fix it. Swap around, I guess. Anyway, I’ve done _my_ duty. She’s on her way to Kansas, via Chicago; but I’ll lay my next boilerful she’ll be held there to wait consignee’s convenience, and sent back to us with wheat in the fall.”

Just then the Pittsburgh Consolidation passed, at the head of a dozen cars.

“I’m goin’ home,” he said proudly.

“Can’t get all them twelve on to the flat. Break ’em in half, Dutchy!” cried Poney. But it was ･007 who was backed down to the last six cars, and he nearly blew up with surprise when he found himself pushing them on to a huge ferry-boat. He had never seen deep water before, and shivered as the flat drew away and left his bogies within six inches of the black, shiny tide.

After this he was hurried to the freight-house, where he saw the yard-master, a smallish, white-faced man in shirt, trousers, and slippers, looking down upon a sea of trucks, a mob of bawling truckmen, and squadrons of backing, turning, sweating, spark-striking horses.

“That’s shippers’ carts loadin’ on to the receivin’ trucks,” said the small engine, reverently. “But _he_ don’t care. He lets ’em cuss. He’s the Czar-King-Boss! He says ’Please,’ and then they kneel down an’ pray. There’s three or four strings o’ today’s freight to be pulled before he can attend to _them_. When he waves his hand that way, things happen.”

A string of loaded cars slid out down the track, and a string of empties took their place. Bales, crates, boxes, jars, carboys, frails, cases, and packages flew into them from the freight-house as though the cars had been magnets and they iron filings.

“Ki-yah!” shrieked little Poney. “Ain’t it great?”

A purple-faced truckman shouldered his way to the yard-master, and shook his fist under his nose. The yard-master never looked up from his bundle of freight receipts. He crooked his forefinger slightly, and a tall young man in a red shirt, lounging carelessly beside him, hit the truckman under the left ear, so that he dropped, quivering and clucking, on a hay-bale.

“Eleven, seven, ninety-seven, L. Y. S.; fourteen ought ought three; nineteen thirteen; one one four; seventeen ought twenty-one M. B.; _and_ the ten westbound. All straight except the two last. Cut ’em off at the junction. An’ _that’s_ all right. Pull that string.” The yard-master, with mild blue eyes, looked out over the howling truckmen at the waters in the moonlight beyond, and hummed:

“All things bright and beautiful, All creatures great and small, _All_ things wise and wonderful, The Lawd Gawd He made all!”

･007 moved out the cars and delivered them to the regular road-engine. He had never felt quite so limp in his life before.

“Curious, ain’t it?” said Poney, puffing, on the next track. “You an’ me, if we got that man under our bumpers, we’d work him into red waste an’ not know what we’d done; but-up there—with the steam hummin’ in his boiler that awful quiet way...”

“_I_ know,” said ･007. “Makes me feel as if I’d dropped my Fire an’ was getting cold. He _is_ the greatest man on earth.”

They were at the far north end of the yard now, under a switchtower, looking down on the four-track way of the main traffic. The Boston Compound was to haul ･007’s string to some far-away northern junction over an indifferent road-bed, and she mourned aloud for the ninety-six pound rails of the B. & A.

“You’re young; you’re young,” she coughed. “You don’t realise your responsibilities.”

“Yes, he does,” said Poney, sharply; “but he don’t lie down under ’em.” Then, with aside-spurt of steam, exactly like a tough spitting: “There ain’t more than fifteen thousand dollars’ worth o’ freight behind her anyway, and she goes on as if ’t were a hundred thousand—same as the Mogul’s. Excuse me, madam, but you’ve the track.... She’s stuck on a dead-centre again—bein’ specially designed not to.”

The Compound crawled across the tracks on a long slant, groaning horribly at each switch, and moving like a cow in a snow-drift. There was a little pause along the yard after her tail-lights had disappeared; switches locked crisply, and every one seemed to be waiting.

“Now I’ll show you something worth,” said Poney. “When the Purple Emperor ain’t on time, it’s about time to amend the Constitution. The first stroke of twelve is—”

“Boom!” went the clock in the big yard-tower, and far away ･007 heard a full, vibrating “_Yah! Yah! Yah!_” A headlight twinkled on the horizon like a star, grew an overpowering blaze, and whooped up the humming track to the roaring music of a happy giant’s song:

“With a michnai—ghignai—shtingal! Yah! Yah! Yah! Ein—zwei—drei—Mutter! Yah! Yah! Yah! She climb upon der shteeple, Und she frighten all der people. Singin’ michnai—ghignai—shtingal! Yah! Yah!”

The last defiant “yah! yah!” was delivered a mile and a half beyond the passenger-depot; but ･007 had caught one glimpse of the superb six-wheel-coupled racing-locomotive, who hauled the pride and glory of the road—the gilt-edged Purple Emperor, the millionaires’ south-bound express, laying the miles over his shoulder as a man peels a shaving from a soft board. The rest was a blur of maroon enamel, a bar of white light from the electrics in the cars, and a flicker of nickel-plated hand-rail on the rear platform.

“Ooh!” said ･007.

“Seventy-five miles an hour these five miles. Baths, I’ve heard; barber’s shop; ticker; and a library and the rest to match. Yes, sir; seventy-five an hour! But he’ll talk to you in the round-house just as democratic as I would. And I—cuss my wheel-base!—I’d kick clean off the track at half his gait. He’s the Master of our Lodge. Cleans up at our house. I’ll introdooce you some day. He’s worth knowin’! There ain’t many can sing that song, either.”

･007 was too full of emotions to answer. He did not hear a raging of telephone-bells in the switch-tower, nor the man, as he leaned out and called to ･007’s engineer: “Got any steam?”

“’Nough to run her a hundred mile out o’ this, if I could,” said the engineer, who belonged to the open road and hated switching.

“Then get. The Flying Freight’s ditched forty mile out, with fifty rod o’ track ploughed up. No; no one’s hurt, but both tracks are blocked. Lucky the wreckin’-car an’ derrick are this end of the yard. Crew ’ll be along in a minute. Hurry! You’ve the track.”

“Well, I could jest kick my little sawed-off self,” said Poney, as ･007 was backed, with a bang, on to a grim and grimy car like a caboose, but full of tools—a flatcar and a derrick behind it. “Some folks are one thing, and some are another; but _you_’re in luck, kid. They push a wrecking-car. Now, don’t get rattled. Your wheel-base will keep you on the track, and there ain’t any curves worth mentionin’. Oh, say! Comanche told me there’s one section o’ sawedged track that’s liable to jounce ye a little. Fifteen an’ a half out, _after_ the grade at Jackson’s crossin’. You’ll know it by a farmhouse an’ a windmill an’ five maples in the dooryard. Windmill’s west o’ the maples. An’ there’s an eighty-foot iron bridge in the middle o’ that section with no guard-rails. See you later. Luck!”

Before he knew well what had happened, ･007 was flying up the track into the dumb, dark world. Then fears of the night beset him. He remembered all he had ever heard of landslides, rain-piled boulders, blown trees, and strayed cattle, all that the Boston Compound had ever said of responsibility, and a great deal more that came out of his own head. With a very quavering voice he whistled for his first grade-crossing (an event in the life of a locomotive), and his nerves were in no way restored by the sight of a frantic horse and a white-faced man in a buggy less than a yard from his right shoulder. Then he was sure he would jump the track; felt his flanges mounting the rail at every curve; knew that his first grade would make him lie down even as Comanche had done at the Newtons. He whirled down the grade to Jackson’s crossing, saw the windmill west of the maples, felt the badly laid rails spring under him, and sweated big drops all over his boiler. At each jarring bump he believed an axle had smashed, and he took the eighty-foot bridge without the guard-rail like a hunted cat on the top of a fence. Then a wet leaf stuck against the glass of his headlight and threw a flying shadow on the track, so that he thought it was some little dancing animal that would feel soft if he ran over it; and anything soft underfoot frightens a locomotive as it does an elephant. But the men behind seemed quite calm. The wrecking-crew were climbing carelessly from the caboose to the tender—even jesting with the engineer, for he heard a shuffling of feet among the coal, and the snatch of a song, something like this:

Oh, the Empire State must learn to wait, And the Cannon-ball go hang! When the West-bound’s ditched, and the tool-car’s hitched, And it’s ’way for the Breakdown Gang (Tare-ra!) ’Way for the Breakdown Gang!

“Say! Eustis knew what he was doin’ when he designed this rig. She’s a hummer. New, too.”

“Snff! Phew! She is new. That ain’t paint, that’s—”

A burning pain shot through ･007’s right rear driver—a crippling, stinging pain.

“This,” said ･007, as he flew, “is a hot-box. Now I know what it means. I shall go to pieces, I guess. My first road-run, too!”

“Het a bit, ain’t she?” the fireman ventured to suggest to the engineer.

“She’ll hold for all we want of her. We’re ’most there. Guess you chaps back had better climb into your car,” said the engineer, his hand on the brake lever. “I’ve seen men snapped off—”

But the crew fled back with laughter. They had no wish to be jerked on to the track. The engineer half turned his wrist, and ･007 found his drivers pinned firm.

“Now it’s come!” said ･007, as he yelled aloud, and slid like a sleigh. For the moment he fancied that he would jerk bodily from off his underpinning.

“That must be the emergency-stop that Poney guyed me about,” he gasped, as soon as he could think. “Hot-box-emergency-stop. They both hurt; but now I can talk back in the round-house.”

He was halted, all hissing hot, a few feet in the rear of what doctors would call a compound-comminuted car. His engineer was kneeling down among his drivers, but he did not call ･007 his “Arab steed,” nor cry over him, as the engineers did in the newspapers. He just bad worded ･007, and pulled yards of charred cotton-waste from about the axles, and hoped he might some day catch the idiot who had packed it. Nobody else attended to him, for Evans, the Mogul’s engineer, a little cut about the head, but very angry, was exhibiting, by lantern-light, the mangled corpse of a slim blue pig.

“’T were n’t even a decent-sized hog,” he said. “’T were a shote.”

“Dangerousest beasts they are,” said one of the crew. “Get under the pilot an’ sort o’ twiddle ye off the track, don’t they?”

“Don’t they?” roared Evans, who was a red-headed Welshman. “You talk as if I was ditched by a hog every fool-day o’ the week. _I_ ain’t friends with all the cussed half-fed shotes in the State o’ New York. No, indeed! Yes, this is him—an’ look what he’s done!”

It was not a bad night’s work for one stray piglet. The Flying Freight seemed to have flown in every direction, for the Mogul had mounted the rails and run diagonally a few hundred feet from right to left, taking with him such cars as cared to follow. Some did not. They broke their couplers and lay down, while rear cars frolicked over them. In that game, they had ploughed up and removed and twisted a good deal of the left-hand track. The Mogul himself had waddled into a corn-field, and there he knelt—fantastic wreaths of green twisted round his crankpins; his pilot covered with solid clods of field, on which corn nodded drunkenly; his fire put out with dirt (Evans had done that as soon as he recovered his senses); and his broken headlight half full of half-burnt moths. His tender had thrown coal all over him, and he looked like a disreputable buffalo who had tried to wallow in a general store. For there lay scattered over the landscape, from the burst cars, type-writers, sewing-machines, bicycles in crates, a consignment of silver-plated imported harness, French dresses and gloves, a dozen finely moulded hard-wood mantels, a fifteen-foot naphtha-launch, with a solid brass bedstead crumpled around her bows, a case of telescopes and microscopes, two coffins, a case of very best candies, some gilt-edged dairy produce, butter and eggs in an omelette, a broken box of expensive toys, and a few hundred other luxuries. A camp of tramps hurried up from nowhere, and generously volunteered to help the crew. So the brakemen, armed with coupler-pins, walked up and down on one side, and the freight-conductor and the fireman patrolled the other with their hands in their hip-pockets. A long-bearded man came out of a house beyond the corn-field, and told Evans that if the accident had happened a little later in the year, all his corn would have been burned, and accused Evans of carelessness. Then he ran away, for Evans was at his heels shrieking: “’T was his hog done it—his hog done it! Let me kill him! Let me kill him!” Then the wrecking-crew laughed; and the farmer put his head out of a window and said that Evans was no gentleman.

But ･007 was very sober. He had never seen a wreck before, and it frightened him. The crew still laughed, but they worked at the same time; and ･007 forgot horror in amazement at the way they handled the Mogul freight. They dug round him with spades; they put ties in front of his wheels, and jack-screws under him; they embraced him with the derrick-chain and tickled him with crowbars; while ･007 was hitched on to wrecked cars and backed away till the knot broke or the cars rolled clear of the track. By dawn thirty or forty men were at work, replacing and ramming down the ties, gauging the rails and spiking them. By daylight all cars who could move had gone on in charge of another loco; the track was freed for traffic; and 007 had hauled the old Mogul over a small pavement of ties, inch by inch, till his flanges bit the rail once more, and he settled down with a clank. But his spirit was broken, and his nerve was gone.

“’T weren’t even a hog,” he repeated dolefully; “’t were a shote; and you—_you_ of all of ’em—had to help me on.”

“But how in the whole long road did it happen?” asked 007, sizzling with curiosity.

“Happen! It didn’t happen! It just come! I sailed right on top of him around that last curve—thought he was a skunk. Yes; he was all as little as that. He hadn’t more ’n squealed once ’fore I felt my bogies lift (he’d rolled right under the pilot), and I couldn’t catch the track again to save me. Swivelled clean off, I was. Then I felt him sling himself along, all greasy, under my left leadin’ driver, and, oh, Boilers! that mounted the rail. I heard my flanges zippin’ along the ties, an’ the next I knew I was playin’ ’Sally, Sally Waters’ in the corn, my tender shuckin’ coal through my cab, an’ old man Evans lyin’ still an’ bleedin’ in front o’ me. Shook? There ain’t a stay or a bolt or a rivet in me that ain’t sprung to glory somewhere.”

“Umm!” said 007. “What d’ you reckon you weigh?”

“Without these lumps o’ dirt I’m all of a hundred thousand pound.”

“And the shote?”

“Eighty. Call him a hundred pound at the outside. He’s worth about four ’n a half dollars. Ain’t it awful? Ain’t it enough to give you nervous prostration? Ain’t it paralysin’? Why, I come just around that curve—” and the Mogul told the tale again, for he was very badly shaken.

“Well, it’s all in the day’s run, I guess,” said 007, soothingly; “an’—an’ a corn-field’s pretty soft fallin’.”

“If it had bin a sixty-foot bridge, an’ I could ha’ slid off into deep water an’ blown up an’ killed both men, same as others have done, I wouldn’t ha’ cared; but to be ditched by a shote—an’ you to help me out—in a corn-field—an’ an old hayseed in his nightgown cussin’ me like as if I was a sick truck-horse!... Oh, it’s awful! Don’t call me Mogul! I’m a sewin’-machine, they’ll guy my sand-box off in the yard.”

And 007, his hot-box cooled and his experience vastly enlarged, hauled the Mogul freight slowly to the roundhouse.

“Hello, old man! Bin out all night, hain’t ye?” said the irrepressible Poney, who had just come off duty. “Well, I must say you look it. Costly-perishable-fragile-immediate—that’s you! Go to the shops, take them vine-leaves out o’ your hair, an’ git ’em to play the hose on you.”

“Leave him alone, Poney,” said 007 severely, as he was swung on the turn-table, “or I’ll—”

“’Didn’t know the old granger was any special friend o’ yours, kid. He wasn’t over-civil to you last time I saw him.”

“I know it; but I’ve seen a wreck since then, and it has about scared the paint off me. I’m not going to guy anyone as long as I steam—not when they’re new to the business an’ anxious to learn. And I’m not goin’ to guy the old Mogul either, though I did find him wreathed around with roastin’-ears. ’T was a little bit of a shote—not a hog—just a shote, Poney—no bigger’n a lump of anthracite—I saw it—that made all the mess. Anybody can be ditched, I guess.”

“Found that out already, have you? Well, that’s a good beginnin’.” It was the Purple Emperor, with his high, tight, plate-glass cab and green velvet cushion, waiting to be cleaned for his next day’s fly.

“Let me make you two gen’lemen acquainted,” said Poney. “This is our Purple Emperor, kid, whom you were admirin’ and, I may say, envyin’ last night. This is a new brother, worshipful sir, with most of his mileage ahead of him, but, so far as a serving-brother can, I’ll answer for him.”

“’Happy to meet you,” said the Purple Emperor, with a glance round the crowded round-house. “I guess there are enough of us here to form a full meetin’. Ahem! By virtue of the authority vested in me as Head of the Road, I hereby declare and pronounce No. ･007 a full and accepted Brother of the Amalgamated Brotherhood of Locomotives, and as such entitled to all shop, switch, track, tank, and round-house privileges throughout my jurisdiction, in the Degree of Superior Flier, it bein’ well known and credibly reported to me that our Brother has covered forty-one miles in thirty-nine minutes and a half on an errand of mercy to the afflicted. At a convenient time, I myself will communicate to you the Song and Signal of this Degree whereby you may be recognised in the darkest night. Take your stall, newly entered Brother among Locomotives!”

Now, in the darkest night, even as the Purple Emperor said, if you will stand on the bridge across the freightyard, looking down upon the four-track way, at 2:30 A. M., neither before nor after, when the White Moth, that takes the overflow from the Purple Emperor, tears south with her seven vestibuled cream-white cars, you will hear, as the yard-clock makes the half-hour, a far-away sound like the bass of a violoncello, and then, a hundred feet to each word,

“With a michnai—ghignai—shtingal! Yah! Yah! Yah! Ein—zwei—drei—Mutter! Yah! Yah! Yah! She climb upon der shteeple, Und she frighten all der people, Singin’ michnai—ghignai—shtingal! Yah! Yah!”

That is 007 covering his one hundred and fifty-six miles in two hundred and twenty-one minutes.

THE MALTESE CAT

They had good reason to be proud, and better reason to be afraid, all twelve of them; for though they had fought their way, game by game, up the teams entered for the polo tournament, they were meeting the Archangels that afternoon in the final match; and the Archangels men were playing with half a dozen ponies apiece. As the game was divided into six quarters of eight minutes each, that meant a fresh pony after every halt. The Skidars’ team, even supposing there were no accidents, could only supply one pony for every other change; and two to one is heavy odds. Again, as Shiraz, the grey Syrian, pointed out, they were meeting the pink and pick of the polo-ponies of Upper India, ponies that had cost from a thousand rupees each, while they themselves were a cheap lot gathered, often from country-carts, by their masters, who belonged to a poor but honest native infantry regiment.

“Money means pace and weight,” said Shiraz, rubbing his black-silk nose dolefully along his neat-fitting boot, “and by the maxims of the game as I know it—”

“Ah, but we aren’t playing the maxims,” said The Maltese Cat. “We’re playing the game; and we’ve the great advantage of knowing the game. Just think a stride, Shiraz! We’ve pulled up from bottom to second place in two weeks against all those fellows on the ground here. That’s because we play with our heads as well as our feet.”

“It makes me feel undersized and unhappy all the same,” said Kittiwynk, a mouse-coloured mare with a red brow-band and the cleanest pair of legs that ever an aged pony owned. “They’ve twice our style, these others.”

Kittiwynk looked at the gathering and sighed. The hard, dusty polo-ground was lined with thousands of soldiers, black and white, not counting hundreds and hundreds of carriages and drags and dogcarts, and ladies with brilliant-coloured parasols, and officers in uniform and out of it, and crowds of natives behind them; and orderlies on camels, who had halted to watch the game, instead of carrying letters up and down the station; and native horse-dealers running about on thin-eared Biluchi mares, looking for a chance to sell a few first-class polo-ponies. Then there were the ponies of thirty teams that had entered for the Upper India Free-for-All Cup—nearly every pony of worth and dignity, from Mhow to Peshawar, from Allahabad to Multan; prize ponies, Arabs, Syrian, Barb, country-bred, Deccanee, Waziri, and Kabul ponies of every colour and shape and temper that you could imagine. Some of them were in mat-roofed stables, close to the polo-ground, but most were under saddle, while their masters, who had been defeated in the earlier games, trotted in and out and told the world exactly how the game should be played.

It was a glorious sight, and the come and go of the little, quick hooves, and the incessant salutations of ponies that had met before on other polo-grounds or race-courses were enough to drive a four-footed thing wild.

But the Skidars’ team were careful not to know their neighbours, though half the ponies on the ground were anxious to scrape acquaintance with the little fellows that had come from the North, and, so far, had swept the board.

“Let’s see,” said a soft gold-coloured Arab, who had been playing very badly the day before, to The Maltese Cat; “didn’t we meet in Abdul Rahman’s stable in Bombay, four seasons ago? I won the Paikpattan Cup next season, you may remember?”

“Not me,” said The Maltese Cat, politely. “I was at Malta then, pulling a vegetable-cart. I don’t race. I play the game.”

“Oh!” said the Arab, cocking his tail and swaggering off.

“Keep yourselves to yourselves,” said The Maltese Cat to his companions. “We don’t want to rub noses with all those goose-rumped half-breeds of Upper India. When we’ve won this Cup they’ll give their shoes to know us.”

“_We_ sha’n’t win the cup,” said Shiraz. “How do you feel?”

“Stale as last night’s feed when a muskrat has run over it,” said Polaris, a rather heavy-shouldered grey; and the rest of the team agreed with him.

“The sooner you forget that the better,” said The Maltese Cat, cheerfully. “They’ve finished tiffin in the big tent. We shall be wanted now. If your saddles are not comfy, kick. If your bits aren’t easy, rear, and let the _saises_ know whether your boots are tight.”

Each pony had his _sais_, his groom, who lived and ate and slept with the animal, and had betted a good deal more than he could afford on the result of the game. There was no chance of anything going wrong, but to make sure, each _sais_ was shampooing the legs of his pony to the last minute. Behind the _saises_ sat as many of the Skidars’ regiment as had leave to attend the match—about half the native officers, and a hundred or two dark, black-bearded men with the regimental pipers nervously fingering the big, beribboned bagpipes. The Skidars were what they call a Pioneer regiment, and the bagpipes made the national music of half their men. The native officers held bundles of polo-sticks, long cane-handled mallets, and as the grand stand filled after lunch they arranged themselves by ones and twos at different points round the ground, so that if a stick were broken the player would not have far to ride for a new one. An impatient British Cavalry Band struck up “If you want to know the time, ask a p’leeceman!” and the two umpires in light dust-coats danced out on two little excited ponies. The four players of the Archangels’ team followed, and the sight of their beautiful mounts made Shiraz groan again.

“Wait till we know,” said The Maltese Cat. “Two of ’em are playing in blinkers, and that means they can’t see to get out of the way of their own side, or they _may_ shy at the umpires’ ponies. They’ve _all_ got white web-reins that are sure to stretch or slip!”

“And,” said Kittiwynk, dancing to take the stiffness out of her, “they carry their whips in their hands instead of on their wrists. Hah!”

“True enough. No man can manage his stick and his reins and his whip that way,” said The Maltese Cat. “I’ve fallen over every square yard of the Malta ground, and _I_ ought to know.”

He quivered his little, flea-bitten withers just to show how satisfied he felt; but his heart was not so light. Ever since he had drifted into India on a troop-ship, taken, with an old rifle, as part payment for a racing debt, The Maltese Cat had played and preached polo to the Skidars’ team on the Skidars’ stony polo-ground. Now a polo-pony is like a poet. If he is born with a love for the game, he can be made. The Maltese Cat knew that bamboos grew solely in order that poloballs might be turned from their roots, that grain was given to ponies to keep them in hard condition, and that ponies were shod to prevent them slipping on a turn. But, besides all these things, he knew every trick and device of the finest game in the world, and for two seasons had been teaching the others all he knew or guessed.

“Remember,” he said for the hundredth time, as the riders came up, “we _must_ play together, and you _must_ play with your heads. Whatever happens, follow the ball. Who goes out first?”

Kittiwynk, Shiraz, Polaris, and a short high little bay fellow with tremendous hocks and no withers worth speaking of (he was called Corks) were being girthed up, and the soldiers in the background stared with all their eyes.

“I want you men to keep quiet,” said Lutyens, the captain of the team, “and especially _not_ to blow your pipes.”

“Not if we win, Captain Sahib?” asked the piper.

“If we win you can do what you please,” said Lutyens, with a smile, as he slipped the loop of his stick over his wrist, and wheeled to canter to his place. The Archangels’ ponies were a little bit above themselves on account of the many-coloured crowd so close to the ground. Their riders were excellent players, but they were a team of crack players instead of a crack team; and that made all the difference in the world. They honestly meant to play together, but it is very hard for four men, each the best of the team he is picked from, to remember that in polo no brilliancy in hitting or riding makes up for playing alone. Their captain shouted his orders to them by name, and it is a curious thing that if you call his name aloud in public after an Englishman you make him hot and fretty. Lutyens said nothing to his men, because it had all been said before. He pulled up Shiraz, for he was playing “back,” to guard the goal. Powell on Polaris was half-back, and Macnamara and Hughes on Corks and Kittiwynk were forwards. The tough, bamboo ball was set in the middle of the ground, one hundred and fifty yards from the ends, and Hughes crossed sticks, heads up, with the Captain of the Archangels, who saw fit to play forward; that is a place from which you cannot easily control your team. The little click as the cane-shafts met was heard all over the ground, and then Hughes made some sort of quick wrist-stroke that just dribbled the ball a few yards. Kittiwynk knew that stroke of old, and followed as a cat follows a mouse. While the Captain of the Archangels was wrenching his pony round, Hughes struck with all his strength, and next instant Kittiwynk was away, Corks following close behind her, their little feet pattering like raindrops on glass.

“Pull out to the left,” said Kittiwynk between her teeth; “it’s coming your way, Corks!”

The back and half-back of the Archangels were tearing down on her just as she was within reach of the ball. Hughes leaned forward with a loose rein, and cut it away to the left almost under Kittiwynk’s foot, and it hopped and skipped off to Corks, who saw that, if he was not quick it would run beyond the boundaries. That long bouncing drive gave the Archangels time to wheel and send three men across the ground to head off Corks. Kittiwynk stayed where she was; for she knew the game. Corks was on the ball half a fraction of a second before the others came up, and Macnamara, with a backhanded stroke, sent it back across the ground to Hughes, who saw the way clear to the Archangels’ goal, and smacked the ball in before any one quite knew what had happened.

“That’s luck,” said Corks, as they changed ends. “A goal in three minutes for three hits, and no riding to speak of.”

“Don’t know,” said Polaris. “We’ve made ’em angry too soon. Shouldn’t wonder if they tried to rush us off our feet next time.”

“Keep the ball hanging, then,” said Shiraz. “That wears out every pony that is not used to it.”

Next time there was no easy galloping across the ground. All the Archangels closed up as one man, but there they stayed, for Corks, Kittiwynk, and Polaris were somewhere on the top of the ball, marking time among the rattling sticks, while Shiraz circled about outside, waiting for a chance.

“_We_ can do this all day,” said Polaris, ramming his quarters into the side of another pony. “Where do you think you’re shoving to?”

“I’ll—I’ll be driven in an _ekka_ if I know,” was the gasping reply, “and I’d give a week’s feed to get my blinkers off. I can’t see anything.”

“The dust is rather bad. Whew! That was one for my off-hock. Where’s the ball, Corks?”

“Under my tail. At least, the man’s looking for it there! This is beautiful. They can’t use their sticks, and it’s driving ’em wild. Give old Blinkers a push and then he’ll go over.”

“Here, don’t touch me! I can’t see. I’ll—I’ll back out, I think,” said the pony in blinkers, who knew that if you can’t see all round your head, you cannot prop yourself against the shock.

Corks was watching the ball where it lay in the dust, close to his near fore-leg, with Macnamara’s shortened stick tap-tapping it from time to time. Kittiwynk was edging her way out of the scrimmage, whisking her stump of a tail with nervous excitement.

“Ho! They’ve got it,” she snorted. “Let me out!” and she galloped like a rifle-bullet just behind a tall lanky pony of the Archangels, whose rider was swinging up his stick for a stroke.

“Not to-day, thank you,” said Hughes, as the blow slid off his raised stick, and Kittiwynk laid her shoulder to the tall pony’s quarters, and shoved him aside just as Lutyens on Shiraz sent the ball where it had come from, and the tall pony went skating and slipping away to the left. Kittiwynk, seeing that Polaris had joined Corks in the chase for the ball up the ground, dropped into Polaris’ place, and then “time” was called.

The Skidars’ ponies wasted no time in kicking or fuming. They knew that each minute’s rest meant so much gain, and trotted off to the rails and their _saises_, who began to scrape and blanket and rub them at once.

“Whew!” said Corks, stiffening up to get all the tickle of the big vulcanite scraper. “If we were playing pony for pony, we would bend those Archangels double in half an hour. But they’ll bring up fresh ones and fresh ones and fresh ones after that—you see.”

“Who cares?” said Polaris. “We’ve drawn first blood. Is my hock swelling?”

“Looks puffy,” said Corks. “You must have had rather a wipe. Don’t let it stiffen. You ’ll be wanted again in half an hour.”

“What’s the game like?” said The Maltese Cat.

“Ground’s like your shoe, except where they put too much water on it,” said Kittiwynk. “Then it’s slippery. Don’t play in the centre. There’s a bog there. I don’t know how their next four are going to behave, but we kept the ball hanging, and made ’em lather for nothing. Who goes out? Two Arabs and a couple of country-breds! That’s bad. What a comfort it is to wash your mouth out!”

Kitty was talking with a neck of a lather-covered soda-water bottle between her teeth, and trying to look over her withers at the same time. This gave her a very coquettish air.

“What’s bad?” said Grey Dawn, giving to the girth and admiring his well-set shoulders.

“You Arabs can’t gallop fast enough to keep yourselves warm—that’s what Kitty means,” said Polaris, limping to show that his hock needed attention. “Are you playing back, Grey Dawn?”

“Looks like it,” said Grey Dawn, as Lutyens swung himself up. Powell mounted The Rabbit, a plain bay country-bred much like Corks, but with mulish ears. Macnamara took Faiz-Ullah, a handy, short-backed little red Arab with a long tail, and Hughes mounted Benami, an old and sullen brown beast, who stood over in front more than a polo-pony should.

“Benami looks like business,” said Shiraz. “How’s your temper, Ben?” The old campaigner hobbled off without answering, and The Maltese Cat looked at the new Archangel ponies prancing about on the ground. They were four beautiful blacks, and they saddled big enough and strong enough to eat the Skidars’ team and gallop away with the meal inside them.

“Blinkers again,” said The Maltese Cat. “Good enough!”

“They’re chargers—cavalry chargers!” said Kittiwynk, indignantly. “_They’ll_ never see thirteen-three again.”

“They’ve all been fairly measured, and they’ve all got their certificates,” said The Maltese Cat, “or they wouldn’t be here. We must take things as they come along, and keep your eyes on the ball.”

The game began, but this time the Skidars were penned to their own end of the ground, and the watching ponies did not approve of that.

“Faiz-Ullah is shirking—as usual,” said Polaris, with a scornful grunt.

“Faiz-Ullah is eating whip,” said Corks. They could hear the leather-thonged polo-quirt lacing the little fellow’s well-rounded barrel. Then The Rabbit’s shrill neigh came across the ground.

“I can’t do all the work,” he cried, desperately.

“Play the game—don’t talk,” The Maltese Cat whickered; and all the ponies wriggled with excitement, and the soldiers and the grooms gripped the railings and shouted. A black pony with blinkers had singled out old Benami, and was interfering with him in every possible way. They could see Benami shaking his head up and down, and flapping his under lip.

“There’ll be a fall in a minute,” said Polaris. “Benami is getting stuffy.”

The game flickered up and down between goal-post and goal-post, and the black ponies were getting more confident as they felt they had the legs of the others. The ball was hit out of a little scrimmage, and Benami and The Rabbit followed it, Faiz-Ullah only too glad to be quiet for an instant.

The blinkered black pony came up like a hawk, with two of his own side behind him, and Benami’s eye glittered as he raced. The question was which pony should make way for the other, for each rider was perfectly willing to risk a fall in a good cause. The black, who had been driven nearly crazy by his blinkers, trusted to his weight and his temper; but Benami knew how to apply his weight and how to keep his temper. They met, and there was a cloud of dust. The black was lying on his side, all the breath knocked out of his body. The Rabbit was a hundred yards up the ground with the ball, and Benami was sitting down. He had slid nearly ten yards on his tail, but he had had his revenge, and sat cracking his nostrils till the black pony rose.

“That’s what you get for interfering. Do you want any more?” said Benami, and he plunged into the game. Nothing was done that quarter, because Faiz-Ullah would not gallop, though Macnamara beat him whenever he could spare a second. The fall of the black pony had impressed his companions tremendously, and so the Archangels could not profit by Faiz-Ullah’s bad behaviour.

But as The Maltese Cat said when “time” was called, and the four came back blowing and dripping, Faiz-Ullah ought to have been kicked all round Umballa. If he did not behave better next time The Maltese Cat promised to pull out his Arab tail by the roots and—eat it.

There was no time to talk, for the third four were ordered out.

The third quarter of a game is generally the hottest, for each side thinks that the others must be pumped; and most of the winning play in a game is made about that time.

Lutyens took over The Maltese Cat with a pat and a hug, for Lutyens valued him more than anything else in the world; Powell had Shikast, a little grey rat with no pedigree and no manners outside polo; Macnamara mounted Bamboo, the largest of the team; and Hughes Who’s Who, _alias_ The Animal. He was supposed to have Australian blood in his veins, but he looked like a clothes-horse, and you could whack his legs with an iron crow-bar without hurting him.

They went out to meet the very flower of the Archangels’ team; and when Who’s Who saw their elegantly booted legs and their beautiful satin skins, he grinned a grin through his light, well-worn bridle.

“My word!” said Who’s Who. “We must give ’em a little football. These gentlemen need a rubbing down.”

“No biting,” said The Maltese Cat, warningly; for once or twice in his career Who’s Who had been known to forget himself in that way.

“Who said anything about biting? I’m not playing tiddly-winks. I’m playing the game.”

The Archangels came down like a wolf on the fold, for they were tired of football, and they wanted polo. They got it more and more. Just after the game began, Lutyens hit a ball that was coming towards him rapidly, and it rolled in the air, as a ball sometimes will, with the whirl of a frightened partridge. Shikast heard, but could not see it for the minute, though he looked everywhere and up into the air as The Maltese Cat had taught him. When he saw it ahead and overhead he went forward with Powell as fast as he could put foot to ground. It was then that Powell, a quiet and level-headed man, as a rule, became inspired, and played a stroke that sometimes comes off successfully after long practice. He took his stick in both hands, and, standing up in his stirrups, swiped at the ball in the air, Munipore fashion. There was one second of paralysed astonishment, and then all four sides of the ground went up in a yell of applause and delight as the ball flew true (you could see the amazed Archangels ducking in their saddles to dodge the line of flight, and looking at it with open mouths), and the regimental pipes of the Skidars squealed from the railings as long as the pipers had breath. Shikast heard the stroke; but he heard the head of the stick fly off at the same time. Nine hundred and ninety-nine ponies out of a thousand would have gone tearing on after the ball with a useless player pulling at their heads; but Powell knew him, and he knew Powell; and the instant he felt Powell’s right leg shift a trifle on the saddle-flap, he headed to the boundary, where a native officer was frantically waving a new stick. Before the shouts had ended, Powell was armed again.

Once before in his life The Maltese Cat had heard that very same stroke played off his own back, and had profited by the confusion it wrought. This time he acted on experience, and leaving Bamboo to guard the goal in case of accidents, came through the others like a flash, head and tail low—Lutyens standing up to ease him—swept on and on before the other side knew what was the matter, and nearly pitched on his head between the Archangels’ goal-post as Lutyens kicked the ball in after a straight scurry of a hundred and fifty yards. If there was one thing more than another upon which The Maltese Cat prided himself, it was on this quick, streaking kind of run half across the ground. He did not believe in taking balls round the field unless you were clearly overmatched. After this they gave the Archangels five-minuted football; and an expensive fast pony hates football because it rumples his temper. Who’s Who showed himself even better than Polaris in this game. He did not permit any wriggling away, but bored joyfully into the scrimmage as if he had his nose in a feed-box and was looking for something nice. Little Shikast jumped on the ball the minute it got clear, and every time an Archangel pony followed it, he found Shikast standing over it, asking what was the matter.

“If we can live through this quarter,” said The Maltese Cat, “I sha’n’t care. Don’t take it out of yourselves. Let them do the lathering.”

So the ponies, as their riders explained afterwards, “shut-up.” The Archangels kept them tied fast in front of their goal, but it cost the Archangels’ ponies all that was left of their tempers; and ponies began to kick, and men began to repeat compliments, and they chopped at the legs of Who’s Who, and he set his teeth and stayed where he was, and the dust stood up like a tree over the scrimmage until that hot quarter ended.

They found the ponies very excited and confident when they went to their saises; and The Maltese Cat had to warn them that the worst of the game was coming.

“Now _we_ are all going in for the second time,” said he, “and _they_ are trotting out fresh ponies. You think you can gallop, but you’ll find you can’t; and then you’ll be sorry.”

“But two goals to nothing is a halter-long lead,” said Kittiwynk, prancing.

“How long does it take to get a goal?” The Maltese Cat answered. “For pity’s sake, don’t run away with a notion that the game is half-won just because we happen to be in luck now! They’ll ride you into the grand stand, if they can; you must _not_ give ’em a chance. Follow the ball.”

“Football, as usual?” said Polaris. “My hock’s half as big as a nose-bag.”

“Don’t let them have a look at the ball, if you can help it. Now leave me alone. I must get all the rest I can before the last quarter.”

He hung down his head and let all his muscles go slack, Shikast, Bamboo, and Who’s Who copying his example.

“Better not watch the game,” he said. “We aren’t playing, and we shall only take it out of ourselves if we grow anxious. Look at the ground and pretend it’s fly-time.”

They did their best, but it was hard advice to follow. The hooves were drumming and the sticks were rattling all up and down the ground, and yells of applause from the English troops told that the Archangels were pressing the Skidars hard. The native soldiers behind the ponies groaned and grunted, and said things in undertones, and presently they heard a long-drawn shout and a clatter of hurrahs!

“One to the Archangels,” said Shikast, without raising his head. “Time’s nearly up. Oh, my sire and dam!”

“Faiz-Ullah,” said The Maltese Cat, “if you don’t play to the last nail in your shoes this time, I’ll kick you on the ground before all the other ponies.”

“I’ll do my best when my time comes,” said the little Arab, sturdily.

The _saises_ looked at each other gravely as they rubbed their ponies’ legs. This was the time when long purses began to tell, and everybody knew it. Kittiwynk and the others came back, the sweat dripping over their hooves and their tails telling sad stories.

“They’re better than we are,” said Shiraz. “I knew how it would be.”

“Shut your big head,” said The Maltese Cat; “we’ve one goal to the good yet.”

“Yes; but it’s two Arabs and two country-breds to play now,” said Corks. “Faiz-Ullah, remember!” He spoke in a biting voice.

As Lutyens mounted Grey Dawn he looked at his men, and they did not look pretty. They were covered with dust and sweat in streaks. Their yellow boots were almost black, their wrists were red and lumpy, and their eyes seemed two inches deep in their heads; but the expression in the eyes was satisfactory.

“Did you take anything at tiffin?” said Lutyens; and the team shook their heads. They were too dry to talk.

“All right. The Archangels did. They are worse pumped than we are.”

“They’ve got the better ponies,” said Powell. “I sha’n’t be sorry when this business is over.”

That fifth quarter was a painful one in every way. Faiz-Ullah played like a little red demon, and The Rabbit seemed to be everywhere at once, and Benami rode straight at anything and everything that came in his way; while the umpires on their ponies wheeled like gulls outside the shifting game. But the Archangels had the better mounts,—they had kept their racers till late in the game,—and never allowed the Skidars to play football. They hit the ball up and down the width of the ground till Benami and the rest were outpaced. Then they went forward, and time and again Lutyens and Grey Dawn were just, and only just, able to send the ball away with a long, spitting backhander. Grey Dawn forgot that he was an Arab; and turned from grey to blue as he galloped. Indeed, he forgot too well, for he did not keep his eyes on the ground as an Arab should, but stuck out his nose and scuttled for the dear honour of the game. They had watered the ground once or twice between the quarters, and a careless waterman had emptied the last of his skinful all in one place near the Skidars’ goal. It was close to the end of the play, and for the tenth time Grey Dawn was bolting after the ball, when his near hind-foot slipped on the greasy mud, and he rolled over and over, pitching Lutyens just clear of the goal-post; and the triumphant Archangels made their goal. Then “time” was called—two goals all; but Lutyens had to be helped up, and Grey Dawn rose with his near hind-leg strained somewhere.

“What’s the damage?” said Powell, his arm around Lutyens.

“Collar-bone, of course,” said Lutyens, between his teeth. It was the third time he had broken it in two years, and it hurt him.

Powell and the others whistled.

“Game’s up,” said Hughes.

“Hold on. We’ve five good minutes yet, and it isn’t my right hand. We ’ll stick it out.”

“I say,” said the Captain of the Archangels, trotting up, “are you hurt, Lutyens? We’ll wait if you care to put in a substitute. I wish—I mean—the fact is, you fellows deserve this game if any team does. Wish we could give you a man, or some of our ponies—or something.”

“You ’re awfully good, but we’ll play it to a finish, I think.”

The Captain of the Archangels stared for a little. “That’s not half bad,” he said, and went back to his own side, while Lutyens borrowed a scarf from one of his native officers and made a sling of it. Then an Archangel galloped up with a big bath-sponge, and advised Lutyens to put it under his armpit to ease his shoulder, and between them they tied up his left arm scientifically; and one of the native officers leaped forward with four long glasses that fizzed and bubbled.

The team looked at Lutyens piteously, and he nodded. It was the last quarter, and nothing would matter after that. They drank out the dark golden drink, and wiped their moustaches, and things looked more hopeful.

The Maltese Cat had put his nose into the front of Lutyens’ shirt and was trying to say how sorry he was.

“He knows,” said Lutyens, proudly. “The beggar knows. I’ve played him without a bridle before now—for fun.”

“It’s no fun now,” said Powell. “But we haven’t a decent substitute.”

“No,” said Lutyens. “It’s the last quarter, and we’ve got to make our goal and win. I’ll trust The Cat.”

“If you fall this time, you’ll suffer a little,” said Macnamara.

“I’ll trust The Cat,” said Lutyens.

“You hear that?” said The Maltese Cat, proudly, to the others. “It’s worth while playing polo for ten years to have that said of you. Now then, my sons, come along. We’ll kick up a little bit, just to show the Archangels _this_ team haven’t suffered.”

And, sure enough, as they went on to the ground, The Maltese Cat, after satisfying himself that Lutyens was home in the saddle, kicked out three or four times, and Lutyens laughed. The reins were caught up anyhow in the tips of his strapped left hand, and he never pretended to rely on them. He knew The Cat would answer to the least pressure of the leg, and by way of showing off—for his shoulder hurt him very much—he bent the little fellow in a close figure-of-eight in and out between the goal-posts. There was a roar from the native officers and men, who dearly loved a piece of _dugabashi_ (horse-trick work), as they called it, and the pipes very quietly and scornfully droned out the first bars of a common bazaar tune called “Freshly Fresh and Newly New,” just as a warning to the other regiments that the Skidars were fit. All the natives laughed.

“And now,” said The Maltese Cat, as they took their place, “remember that this is the last quarter, and follow the ball!”

“Don’t need to be told,” said Who’s Who.

“Let me go on. All those people on all four sides will begin to crowd in—just as they did at Malta. You’ll hear people calling out, and moving forward and being pushed back; and that is going to make the Archangel ponies very unhappy. But if a ball is struck to the boundary, you go after it, and let the people get out of your way. I went over the pole of a four-in-hand once, and picked a game out of the dust by it. Back me up when I run, and follow the ball.”

There was a sort of an all-round sound of sympathy and wonder as the last quarter opened, and then there began exactly what The Maltese Cat had foreseen. People crowded in close to the boundaries, and the Archangels’ ponies kept looking sideways at the narrowing space. If you know how a man feels to be cramped at tennis—not because he wants to run out of the court, but because he likes to know that he can at a pinch—you will guess how ponies must feel when they are playing in a box of human beings.

“I’ll bend some of those men if I can get away,” said Who’s Who, as he rocketed behind the ball; and Bamboo nodded without speaking. They were playing the last ounce in them, and The Maltese Cat had left the goal undefended to join them. Lutyens gave him every order that he could to bring him back, but this was the first time in his career that the little wise grey had ever played polo on his own responsibility, and he was going to make the most of it.

“What are you doing here?” said Hughes, as The Cat crossed in front of him and rode off an Archangel.

“The Cat’s in charge—mind the goal!” shouted Lutyens, and bowing forward hit the ball full, and followed on, forcing the Archangels towards their own goal.

“No football,” said The Maltese Cat. “Keep the ball by the boundaries and cramp ’em. Play open order, and drive ’em to the boundaries.”

Across and across the ground in big diagonals flew the ball, and whenever it came to a flying rush and a stroke close to the boundaries the Archangel ponies moved stiffly. They did not care to go headlong at a wall of men and carriages, though if the ground had been open they could have turned on a sixpence.

“Wriggle her up the sides,” said The Cat. “Keep her close to the crowd. They hate the carriages. Shikast, keep her up this side.”

Shikast and Powell lay left and right behind the uneasy scuffle of an open scrimmage, and every time the ball was hit away Shikast galloped on it at such an angle that Powell was forced to hit it towards the boundary; and when the crowd had been driven away from that side, Lutyens would send the ball over to the other, and Shikast would slide desperately after it till his friends came down to help. It was billiards, and no football, this time—billiards in a corner pocket; and the cues were not well chalked.

“If they get us out in the middle of the ground they’ll walk away from us. Dribble her along the sides,” cried The Maltese Cat.

So they dribbled all along the boundary, where a pony could not come on their right-hand side; and the Archangels were furious, and the umpires had to neglect the game to shout at the people to get back, and several blundering mounted policemen tried to restore order, all close to the scrimmage, and the nerves of the Archangels’ ponies stretched and broke like cob-webs.

Five or six times an Archangel hit the ball up into the middle of the ground, and each time the watchful Shikast gave Powell his chance to send it back, and after each return, when the dust had settled, men could see that the Skidars had gained a few yards.

Every now and again there were shouts of “Side! Off side!” from the spectators; but the teams were too busy to care, and the umpires had all they could do to keep their maddened ponies clear of the scuffle.

At last Lutyens missed a short easy stroke, and the Skidars had to fly back helter-skelter to protect their own goal, Shikast leading. Powell stopped the ball with a backhander when it was not fifty yards from the goalposts, and Shikast spun round with a wrench that nearly hoisted Powell out of his saddle.

“Now’s our last chance,” said The Cat, wheeling like a cockchafer on a pin. “We’ve got to ride it out. Come along.”

Lutyens felt the little chap take a deep breath, and, as it were, crouch under his rider. The ball was hopping towards the right-hand boundary, an Archangel riding for it with both spurs and a whip; but neither spur nor whip would make his pony stretch himself as he neared the crowd. The Maltese Cat glided under his very nose, picking up his hind legs sharp, for there was not a foot to spare between his quarters and the other pony’s bit. It was as neat an exhibition as fancy figure-skating. Lutyens hit with all the strength he had left, but the stick slipped a little in his hand, and the ball flew off to the left instead of keeping close to the boundary. Who’s Who was far across the ground, thinking hard as he galloped. He repeated stride for stride The Cat’s manoeuvres with another Archangel pony, nipping the ball away from under his bridle, and clearing his opponent by half a fraction of an inch, for Who’s Who was clumsy behind. Then he drove away towards the right as The Maltese Cat came up from the left; and Bamboo held a middle course exactly between them. The three were making a sort of Government-broad-arrow-shaped attack; and there was only the Archangels’ back to guard the goal; but immediately behind them were three Archangels racing all they knew, and mixed up with them was Powell sending Shikast along on what he felt was their last hope. It takes a very good man to stand up to the rush of seven crazy ponies in the last quarters of a Cup game, when men are riding with their necks for sale, and the ponies are delirious. The Archangels’ back missed his stroke and pulled aside just in time to let the rush go by. Bamboo and Who’s Who shortened stride to give The Cat room, and Lutyens got the goal with a clean, smooth, smacking stroke that was heard all over the field. But there was no stopping the ponies. They poured through the goalposts in one mixed mob, winners and losers together, for the pace had been terrific. The Maltese Cat knew by experience what would happen, and, to save Lutyens, turned to the right with one last effort, that strained a back-sinew beyond hope of repair. As he did so he heard the right-hand goalpost crack as a pony cannoned into it—crack, splinter and fall like a mast. It had been sawed three parts through in case of accidents, but it upset the pony nevertheless, and he blundered into another, who blundered into the left-hand post, and then there was confusion and dust and wood. Bamboo was lying on the ground, seeing stars; an Archangel pony rolled beside him, breathless and angry; Shikast had sat down dog-fashion to avoid falling over the others, and was sliding along on his little bobtail in a cloud of dust; and Powell was sitting on the ground, hammering with his stick and trying to cheer. All the others were shouting at the top of what was left of their voices, and the men who had been spilt were shouting too. As soon as the people saw no one was hurt, ten thousand native and English shouted and clapped and yelled, and before any one could stop them the pipers of the Skidars broke on to the ground, with all the native officers and men behind them, and marched up and down, playing a wild Northern tune called “Zakhme Began,” and through the insolent blaring of the pipes and the high-pitched native yells you could hear the Archangels’ band hammering, “For they are all jolly good fellows,” and then reproachfully to the losing team, “Ooh, Kafoozalum! Kafoozalum! Kafoozalum!”

Besides all these things and many more, there was a Commander-in-chief, and an Inspector-General of Cavalry, and the principal veterinary officer of all India standing on the top of a regimental coach, yelling like school-boys; and brigadiers and colonels and commissioners, and hundreds of pretty ladies joined the chorus. But The Maltese Cat stood with his head down, wondering how many legs were left to him; and Lutyens watched the men and ponies pick themselves out of the wreck of the two goal-posts, and he patted The Maltese Cat very tenderly.

“I say,” said the Captain of the Archangels, spitting a pebble out of his mouth, “will you take three thousand for that pony—as he stands?”

“No thank you. I’ve an idea he’s saved my life,” said Lutyens, getting off and lying down at full length. Both teams were on the ground too, waving their boots in the air, and coughing and drawing deep breaths, as the _saises_ ran up to take away the ponies, and an officious water-carrier sprinkled the players with dirty water till they sat up.

“My aunt!” said Powell, rubbing his back, and looking at the stumps of the goal-posts, “That was a game!”

They played it over again, every stroke of it, that night at the big dinner, when the Free-for-All Cup was filled and passed down the table, and emptied and filled again, and everybody made most eloquent speeches. About two in the morning, when there might have been some singing, a wise little, plain little, grey little head looked in through the open door.

“Hurrah! Bring him in,” said the Archangels; and his _sais_, who was very happy indeed, patted The Maltese Cat on the flank, and he limped in to the blaze of light and the glittering uniforms, looking for Lutyens. He was used to messes, and men’s bedrooms, and places where ponies are not usually encouraged, and in his youth had jumped on and off a mess-table for a bet. So he behaved himself very politely, and ate bread dipped in salt, and was petted all round the table, moving gingerly; and they drank his health, because he had done more to win the Cup than any man or horse on the ground.

That was glory and honour enough for the rest of his days, and The Maltese Cat did not complain much when the veterinary surgeon said that he would be no good for polo any more. When Lutyens married, his wife did not allow him to play, so he was forced to be an umpire; and his pony on these occasions was a flea-bitten grey with a neat polo-tail, lame all round, but desperately quick on his feet, and, as everybody knew, Past Pluperfect Prestissimo Player of the Game.

“BREAD UPON THE WATERS”

If you remember my improper friend Brugglesmith, you will also bear in mind his friend McPhee, Chief Engineer of the _Breslau_, whose dingey Brugglesmith tried to steal. His apologies for the performances of Brugglesmith may one day be told in their proper place: the tale before us concerns McPhee. He was never a racing engineer, and took special pride in saying as much before the Liverpool men; but he had a thirty-two years’ knowledge of machinery and the humours of ships. One side of his face had been wrecked through the bursting of a pressure-gauge in the days when men knew less than they do now, and his nose rose grandly out of the wreck, like a club in a public riot. There were cuts and lumps on his head, and he would guide your forefinger through his short iron-grey hair and tell you how he had come by his trade-marks. He owned all sorts of certificates of extra-competency, and at the bottom of his cabin chest of drawers, where he kept the photograph of his wife, were two or three Royal Humane Society medals for saving lives at sea. Professionally—it was different when crazy steerage-passengers jumped overboard—professionally, McPhee does not approve of saving life at sea, and he has often told me that a new Hell awaits stokers and trimmers who sign for a strong man’s pay and fall sick the second day out. He believes in throwing boots at fourth and fifth engineers when they wake him up at night with word that a bearing is redhot, all because a lamp’s glare is reflected red from the twirling metal. He believes that there are only two poets in the world; one being Robert Burns, of course, and the other Gerald Massey. When he has time for novels he reads Wilkie Collins and Charles Reade—chiefly the latter—and knows whole pages of _Very Hard Cash_ by heart. In the saloon his table is next to the captain’s, and he drinks only water while his engines work.

He was good to me when we first met, because I did not ask questions, and believed in Charles Reade as a most shamefully neglected author. Later he approved of my writings to the extent of one pamphlet of twenty-four pages that I wrote for Holdock, Steiner & Chase, owners of the line, when they bought some ventilating patent and fitted it to the cabins of the _Breslau_, _Spandau_, and _Koltzau_. The purser of the _Breslau_ recommended me to Holdock’s secretary for the job; and Holdock, who is a Wesleyan Methodist, invited me to his house, and gave me dinner with the governess when the others had finished, and placed the plans and specifications in my hand, and I wrote the pamphlet that same afternoon. It was called “Comfort in the Cabin,” and brought me seven pound ten, cash down—an important sum of money in those days; and the governess, who was teaching Master John Holdock his scales, told me that Mrs. Holdock had told her to keep an eye on me, in case I went away with coats from the hat-rack. McPhee liked that pamphlet enormously, for it was composed in the Bouverie-Byzantine style, with baroque and rococo embellishments; and afterwards he introduced me to Mrs. McPhee, who succeeded Dinah in my heart; for Dinah was half a world away, and it is wholesome and antiseptic to love such a woman as Janet McPhee. They lived in a little twelve-pound house, close to the shipping. When McPhee was away Mrs. McPhee read the Lloyds column in the papers, and called on the wives of senior engineers of equal social standing. Once or twice, too, Mrs. Holdock visited Mrs. McPhee in a brougham with celluloid fittings, and I have reason to believe that, after she had played owner’s wife long enough, they talked scandal. The Holdocks lived in an old-fashioned house with a big brick garden not a mile from the McPhees, for they stayed by their money as their money stayed by them; and in summer you met their brougham solemnly junketing by Theydon Bois or Loughton. But I was Mrs. McPhee’s friend, for she allowed me to convoy her westward, sometimes, to theatres where she sobbed or laughed or shivered with a simple heart; and she introduced me to a new world of doctors’ wives, captains’ wives, and engineers’ wives, whose whole talk and thought centred in and about ships and lines of ships you have never heard of. There were sailing-ships, with stewards and mahogany and maple saloons, trading to Australia, taking cargoes of consumptives and hopeless drunkards for whom a sea-voyage was recommended; there were frowzy little West African boats, full of rats and cockroaches, where men died anywhere but in their bunks; there were Brazilian boats whose cabins could be hired for merchandise, that went out loaded nearly awash; there were Zanzibar and Mauritius steamers and wonderful reconstructed boats that plied to the other tide of Borneo. These were loved and known, for they earned our bread and a little butter, and we despised the big Atlantic boats, and made fun of the P. & O. and Orient liners, and swore by our respective owners—Wesleyan, Baptist, or Presbyterian, as the case might be.

I had only just come back to England when Mrs. McPhee invited me to dinner at three o’clock in the afternoon, and the notepaper was almost bridal in its scented creaminess. When I reached the house I saw that there were new curtains in the window that must have cost forty-five shillings a pair; and as Mrs. McPhee drew me into the little marble-papered hall, she looked at me keenly, and cried:

“Have ye not heard? What d’ ye think o’ the hat-rack?”

Now, that hat-rack was oak—thirty shillings, at least. McPhee came down-stairs with a sober foot—he steps as lightly as a cat, for all his weight, when he is at sea—and shook hands in a new and awful manner—a parody of old Holdock’s style when he says good-bye to his skippers. I perceived at once that a legacy had come to him, but I held my peace, though Mrs. McPhee begged me every thirty seconds to eat a great deal and say nothing. It was rather a mad sort of meal, because McPhee and his wife took hold of hands like little children (they always do after voyages), and nodded and winked and choked and gurgled, and hardly ate a mouthful.

A female servant came in and waited; though Mrs. McPhee had told me time and again that she would thank no one to do her housework while she had her health. But this was a servant with a cap, and I saw Mrs. McPhee swell and swell under her _garance_-coloured gown. There is no small free-board to Janet McPhee, nor is _garance_ any subdued tint; and with all this unexplained pride and glory in the air I felt like watching fireworks without knowing the festival. When the maid had removed the cloth she brought a pineapple that would have cost half a guinea at that season (only McPhee has his own way of getting such things), and a Canton china bowl of dried lichis, and a glass plate of preserved ginger, and a small jar of sacred and Imperial chow-chow that perfumed the room. McPhee gets it from a Dutchman in Java, and I think he doctors it with liqueurs. But the crown of the feast was some Madeira of the kind you can only come by if you know the wine and the man. A little maize-wrapped fig of clotted Madeira cigars went with the wine, and the rest was a pale blue smoky silence; Janet, in her splendour, smiling on us two, and patting McPhee’s hand.

“We’ll drink,” said McPhee, slowly, rubbing his chin, “to the eternal damnation o’ Holdock, Steiner & Chase.”

Of course I answered “Amen,” though I had made seven pound ten shillings out of the firm. McPhee’s enemies were mine, and I was drinking his Madeira.

“Ye’ve heard nothing?” said Janet. “Not a word, not a whisper?”

“Not a word, nor a whisper. On my word, I have not.”

“Tell him, Mac,” said she; and that is another proof of Janet’s goodness and wifely love. A smaller woman would have babbled first, but Janet is five feet nine in her stockings.

“We’re rich,” said McPhee. I shook hands all round.

“We’re damned rich,” he added. I shook hands all round a second time.

“I’ll go to sea no more—unless—there’s no sayin’—a private yacht, maybe—wi’ a small an’ handy auxiliary.”

“It’s not enough for _that_,” said Janet. “We’re fair rich—well-to-do, but no more. A new gown for church, and one for the theatre. We’ll have it made west.”

“How much is it?” I asked.

“Twenty-five thousand pounds.” I drew a long breath. “An’ I’ve been earnin’ twenty-five an’ twenty pound a month!”

The last words came away with a roar, as though the wide world was conspiring to beat him down.

“All this time I’m waiting,” I said. “I know nothing since last September. Was it left you?”

They laughed aloud together. “It was left,” said McPhee, choking. “Ou, ay, it was left. That’s vara good. Of course it was left. Janet, d’ ye note that? It was left. Now if you’d put _that_ in your pamphlet it would have been vara jocose. It _was_ left.” He slapped his thigh and roared till the wine quivered in the decanter.

The Scotch are a great people, but they are apt to hang over a joke too long, particularly when no one can see the point but themselves.

“When I rewrite my pamphlet I’ll put it in, McPhee. Only I must know something more first.”

McPhee thought for the length of half a cigar, while Janet caught my eye and led it round the room to one new thing after another—the new vine-pattern carpet, the new chiming rustic clock between the models of the Colombo outrigger-boats, the new inlaid sideboard with a purple cut-glass flower-stand, the fender of gilt and brass, and last, the new black-and-gold piano.

“In October o’ last year the Board sacked me,” began McPhee. “In October o’ last year the _Breslau_ came in for winter overhaul. She’d been runnin’ eight months—two hunder an’ forty days—an’ I was three days makin’ up my indents, when she went to dry-dock. All told, mark you, it was this side o’ three hunder pound—to be preceese, two hunder an’ eighty-six pound four shillings. There’s not another man could ha’ nursed the _Breslau_ for eight months to that tune. Never again—never again! They may send their boats to the bottom, for aught I care.”

“There’s no need,” said Janet, softly. “We’re done wi’ Holdock, Steiner & Chase.”

“It’s irritatin’, Janet, it’s just irritatin’. I ha’ been justified from first to last, as the world knows, but—but I canna forgie ’em. Ay, wisdom is justified o’ her children; an’ any other man than me wad ha’ made the indent eight hunder. Hay was our skipper—ye’ll have met him. They shifted him to the _Torgau_, an’ bade me wait for the _Breslau_ under young Bannister. Ye’ll obsairve there’d been a new election on the Board. I heard the shares were sellin’ hither an’ yon, an’ the major part of the Board was new to me. The old Board would ne’er ha’ done it. They trusted me. But the new Board were all for reorganisation. Young Steiner—Steiner’s son—the Jew, was at the bottom of it, an’ they did not think it worth their while to send me word. The first I knew—an’ I was Chief Engineer—was the notice of the line’s winter sailin’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 employé 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,’ said Holdock.

“‘I’m speakin’ for myself,’ I said. ‘Bannister has bairns.’ An’ then I ‘Ye can run her into Hell an’ out again if ye pay pilotage,’ I said, ‘but ye run without me.’

“‘That’s insolence,’ said young Steiner.

“‘At your pleasure,’ I said, turnin’ to go.

“‘Ye can consider yourself dismissed. We must preserve discipline among our employés,’ said old Holdock, an’ he looked round to see that the Board was with him. They knew nothin’—God forgie ’em—an’ they nodded me out o’ the line after twenty years—after twenty years.

“I went out an’ sat down by the hall porter to get my wits again. I’m thinkin’ I swore at the Board. Then auld McRimmon—o’ McNaughten & McRimmon—came, oot o’ his office, that’s on the same floor, an’ looked at me, proppin’ up one eyelid wi’ his forefinger. Ye know they call him the Blind Deevil, forbye he onythin’ but blind, an’ no deevil in his dealin’s wi’ me—McRimmon o’ the Black Bird Line.

“‘What’s here, Mister McPhee?’ said he.

“I was past prayin’ for by then. ‘A Chief Engineer sacked after twenty years’ service because he’ll not risk the _Breslau_ on the new timin’, an’ be damned to ye, McRimmon,’ I said.

“The auld man sucked in his lips an’ whistled. ‘Ah,’ said he, ‘the new timin’. I see!’ He doddered into the Board-room I’d just left, an’ the Dandie-dog that is just his blind man’s leader stayed wi’ me. _That_ was providential. In a minute he was back again. ‘Ye’ve cast your bread on the watter, McPhee, an’ be damned to you,’ he says. ‘Whaur’s my dog? My word, is he on your knee? There’s more discernment in a dog than a Jew. What garred ye curse your Board, McPhee? It’s expensive.’

“‘They’ll pay more for the _Breslau_,’ I said. ‘Get off my knee, ye smotherin’ beast.’

“‘Bearin’s hot, eh?’ said McRimmon. ‘It’s thirty year since a man daur curse me to my face. Time was I’d ha’ cast ye doon the stairway for that.’

“‘Forgie’s all!’ I said. He was wearin’ to eighty, as I knew. ‘I was wrong, McRimmon; but when a man’s shown the door for doin’ his plain duty he’s not always ceevil.’

“‘So I hear,’ says McRimmon. ‘Ha’ ye ony objection to a tramp freighter? It’s only fifteen a month, but they say the Blind Deevil feeds a man better than others. She’s my _Kite_. Come ben. Ye can thank Dandie, here. I’m no used to thanks. An’ noo,’ says he, ‘what possessed ye to throw up your berth wi’ Holdock?’

“‘The new timin’,’ said I. ‘The _Breslau_ will not stand it.’

“‘Hoot, oot,’ said he. ‘Ye might ha’ crammed her a little—enough to show ye were drivin’ her—an’ brought her in twa days behind. What’s easier than to say ye slowed for bearin’s, eh? All my men do it, and—I believe ’em.’

“‘McRimmon,’ says I, ‘what’s her virginity to a lassie?’

“He puckered his dry face an’ twisted in his chair. ‘The warld an’ a’,’ says he. ‘My God, the vara warld an’ a’. (But what ha’ you or me to do wi’ virginity, this late along?)’

“‘This,’ I said. ‘There’s just one thing that each one of us in his trade or profession will _not_ do for ony consideration whatever. If I run to time I run to time, barrin’ always the risks o’ the high seas. Less than that, under God, I have not done. More than that, by God, I will not do! There’s no trick o’ the trade I’m not acquaint wi’—’

“‘So I’ve heard,’ says McRimmon, dry as a biscuit.

“‘But yon matter o’ fair runnin’ s just my Shekinah, ye’ll understand. I daurna tamper wi’ _that_. Nursing weak engines is fair craftsmanship; but what the Board ask is cheatin’, wi’ the risk o’ manslaughter addeetional.’ Ye’ll note I know my business.

“There was some more talk, an’ next week I went aboard the _Kite_, twenty-five hunder ton, simple compound, a Black Bird tramp. The deeper she rode, the better she’d steam. I’ve snapped as much as eleven out of her, but eight point three was her fair normal. Good food forward an’ better aft, all indents passed wi’out marginal remarks, the best coal, new donkeys, and good crews. There was nothin’ the old man would not do, except paint. That was his deeficulty. Ye could no more draw paint than his last teeth from him. He’d come down to dock, an’ his boats a scandal all along the watter, an’ he’d whine an’ cry an’ say they looked all he could desire. Every owner has his _non plus ultra_, I’ve obsairved. Paint was McRimmon’s. But you could get round his engines without riskin’ your life, an’, for all his blindness, I’ve seen him reject five flawed intermediates, one after the other, on a nod from me; an’ his cattle-fittin’s were guaranteed for North Atlantic winter weather. Ye ken what _that_ means? McRimmon an’ the Black Bird Line, God bless him!

“Oh, I forgot to say she would lie down an’ fill her forward deck green, an’ snore away into a twenty-knot gale forty-five to the minute, three an’ a half knots an hour, the engines runnin’ sweet an’ true as a bairn breathin’ in its sleep. Bell was skipper; an’ forbye there’s no love lost between crews an’ owners, we were fond o’ the auld Blind Deevil an’ his dog, an’ I’m thinkin’ he liked us. He was worth the windy side o’ twa million sterlin’, an’ no friend to his own blood-kin. Money’s an awfu’ thing—overmuch—for a lonely man.

“I’d taken her out twice, there an’ back again, when word came o’ the _Breslau’s_ breakdown, just as I prophesied. Calder was her engineer—he’s not fit to run a tug down the Solent—and he fairly lifted the engines off the bed-plates, an’ they fell down in heaps, by what I heard. So she filled from the after stuffin’-box to the after bulkhead, an’ lay star-gazing, with seventy-nine squealin’ passengers in the saloon, till the _Camaralzaman_ o’ Ramsey & Gold’s Cartagena line gave her a tow to the tune o’ five thousand seven hunder an’ forty pound, wi’ costs in the Admiralty Court. She was helpless, ye’ll understand, an’ in no case to meet ony weather. Five thousand seven hunder an’ forty pounds, _with_ costs, an’ exclusive o’ new engines! They’d ha’ done better to ha’ kept me on the old timin’.

“But, even so, the new Board were all for retrenchment. Young Steiner, the Jew, was at the bottom of it. They sacked men right an’ left, that would not eat the dirt the Board gave ’em. They cut down repairs; they fed crews wi’ leavin’s an’ scrapin’s; and, reversin’, McRimmon’s practice, they hid their defeeciencies wi’ paint an’ cheap gildin’. _Quem Deus vult perrdere prrius dementat_, ye remember.

“In January we went to dry-dock, an’ in the next dock lay the _Grotkau_, their big freighter that was the _Dolabella_ o’ Piegan, Piegan & Walsh’s line in ’84—a Clyde-built iron boat, a flat-bottomed, pigeon-breasted, under-engined, bull-nosed bitch of a five thousand ton freighter, that would neither steer, nor steam, nor stop when ye asked her. Whiles she’d attend to her helm, whiles she’d take charge, whiles she’d wait to scratch herself, an’ whiles she’d buttock into a dockhead. But Holdock and Steiner had bought her cheap, and painted her all over like the Hoor o’ Babylon, an’ we called her the _Hoor_ for short.” (By the way, McPhee kept to that name throughout the rest of his tale; so you must read accordingly.) “I went to see young Bannister—he had to take what the Board gave him, an’ he an’ Calder were shifted together from the _Breslau_ to this abortion—an’ talkin’ to him I went into the dock under her. Her plates were pitted till the men that were paint, paint, paintin’ her laughed at it. But the warst was at the last. She’d a great clumsy iron twelve-foot Thresher propeller—Aitcheson designed the _Kite’s_’—and just on the tail o’ the shaft, behind the boss, was a red weepin’ crack ye could ha’ put a penknife to. Man, it was an awful crack!

“‘When d’ ye ship a new tail-shaft?’ I said to Bannister.

“He knew what I meant. ‘Oh, yon’s a superfeecial flaw,’ says he, not lookin’ at me.

“‘Superfeecial Gehenna!’ I said. ‘Ye’ll not take her oot wi’ a solution o’ continuity that like.’

“‘They’ll putty it up this evening,’ he said. ‘I’m a married man, an’—ye used to know the Board.’

“I e’en said what was gie’d me in that hour. Ye know how a drydock echoes. I saw young Steiner standin’ listenin’ above me, an’, man, he used language provocative of a breach o’ the peace. I was a spy and a disgraced employé, an’ a corrupter o’ young Bannister’s morals, an’ he’d prosecute me for libel. He went away when I ran up the steps—I’d ha’ thrown him into the dock if I’d caught him—an’ there I met McRimmon, wi’ Dandie pullin’ on the chain, guidin’ the auld man among the railway lines.

“‘McPhee,’ said he, ‘ye’re no paid to fight Holdock, Steiner, Chase & Company, Limited, when ye meet. What’s wrong between you?’

“‘No more than a tail-shaft rotten as a kail-stump. For ony sakes go an’ look, McRimmon. It’s a comedietta.’

“‘I’m feared o’ yon conversational Hebrew,’ said he. ‘Whaur’s the flaw, an’ what like?’

“‘A seven-inch crack just behind the boss. There’s no power on earth will fend it just jarrin’ off.’

“‘When?’

“‘That’s beyon’ my knowledge,’ I said.

“‘So it is; so it is,’ said McRimmon. ‘We’ve all oor leemitations. Ye’re certain it was a crack?’

“‘Man, it’s a crevasse,’ I said, for there were no words to describe the magnitude of it. ‘An’ young Bannister’s sayin’ it’s no more than a superfeecial flaw!’

“‘Weell, I tak’ it oor business is to mind oor business. If ye’ve ony friends aboard her, McPhee, why not bid them to a bit dinner at Radley’s?’

“‘I was thinkin’ o’ tea in the cuddy,’ I said. ‘Engineers o’ tramp freighters cannot afford hotel prices.’

“‘Na! na!’ says the auld man, whimperin’. ‘Not the cuddy. They’ll laugh at my _Kite_, for she’s no plastered with paint like the _Hoor_. Bid them to Radley’s, McPhee, an’ send me the bill. Thank Dandie, here, man. I’m no used to thanks.’ Then he turned him round. (I was just thinkin’ the vara same thing.)

‘Mister McPhee,’ said he, ‘this is _not_ senile dementia.’

“‘Preserve ’s!’ I said, clean jumped oot o’ mysel’. ‘I was but thinkin’ you’re fey, McRimmon.’

“Dod, the auld deevil laughed till he nigh sat down on Dandie. ‘Send me the bill,’ says he. ‘I’m long past champagne, but tell me how it tastes the morn.’

“Bell and I bid young Bannister and Calder to dinner at Radley’s. They’ll have no laughin’ an’ singin’ there, but we took a private room—like yacht-owners fra’ Cowes.”

McPhee grinned all over, and lay back to think.

“And then?” said I.

“We were no drunk in ony preceese sense o’ the word, but Radley’s showed me the dead men. There were six magnums o’ dry champagne an’ maybe a bottle o’ whisky.”

“Do you mean to tell me that you four got away with a magnum and a half a piece, besides whisky?” I demanded.

McPhee looked down upon me from between his shoulders with toleration.

“Man, we were not settin’ down to drink,” he said. “They no more than made us wutty. To be sure, young Bannister laid his head on the table an’ greeted like a bairn, an’ Calder was all for callin’ on Steiner at two in the morn an’ painting him galley-green; but they’d been drinkin’ the afternoon. Lord, how they twa cursed the Board, an’ the _Grotkau_, an’ the tail-shaft, an’ the engines, an’ a’! They didna talk o’ superfeecial flaws that night. I mind young Bannister an’ Calder shakin’ hands on a bond to be revenged on the Board at ony reasonable cost this side o’ losing their certificates. Now mark ye how false economy ruins business. The Board fed them like swine (I have good reason to know it), an’ I’ve obsairved wi’ my ain people that if ye touch his stomach ye wauken the deil in a Scot. Men will tak’ a dredger across the Atlantic if they’re well fed, an’ fetch her somewhere on the broadside o’ the Americas; but bad food’s bad service the warld over.

“The bill went to McRimmon, an’ he said no more to me till the week-end, when I was at him for more paint, for we’d heard the _Kite_ was chartered Liverpool-side.

‘Bide whaur ye’re put,’ said the Blind Deevil. ‘Man, do ye wash in champagne? The _Kite’s_ no leavin’ here till I gie the order, an’—how am I to waste paint on her, wi’ the _Lammergeyer_ docked for who knows how long an’ a’?’

“She was our big freighter—McIntyre was engineer—an’ I knew she’d come from overhaul not three months. That morn I met McRimmon’s head-clerk—ye’ll not know him—fair bitin’ his nails off wi’ mortification.

“‘The auld man’s gone gyte,’ says he. ‘He’s withdrawn the _Lammergeyer_.’

“‘Maybe he has reasons,’ says I.

“‘Reasons! He’s daft!’

“‘He’ll no be daft till he begins to paint,’ I said.

“‘That’s just what he’s done—and South American freights higher than we’ll live to see them again. He’s laid her up to paint her—to paint her—to paint her!’ says the little clerk, dancin’ like a hen on a hot plate. ‘Five thousand ton o’ potential freight rottin’ in drydock, man; an’ he dolin’ the paint out in quarter-pound tins, for it cuts him to the heart, mad though he is. An’ the _Grotkau_—the _Grotkau_ of all conceivable bottoms—soaking up every pound that should be ours at Liverpool!’

“I was staggered wi’ this folly—considerin’ the dinner at Radley’s in connection wi’ the same.

“‘Ye may well stare, McPhee,’ says the head-clerk. ‘There’s engines, an’ rollin’ stock, an’ iron bridges—d’ye know what freights are noo? an’ pianos, an’ millinery, an’ fancy Brazil cargo o’ every species pourin’ into the _Grotkau_—the _Grotkau_ o’ the Jerusalem firm—and the _Lammergeyer_’s bein’ painted!’

“Losh, I thought he’d drop dead wi’ the fits.

“I could say no more than ‘Obey orders, if ye break owners,’ but on the _Kite_ we believed McRimmon was mad; an’ McIntyre of the _Lammergeyer_ was for lockin’ him up by some patent legal process he’d found in a book o’ maritime law. An’ a’ that week South American freights rose an’ rose. It was sinfu’!

“Syne Bell got orders to tak’ the _Kite_ round to Liverpool in water-ballast, and McRimmon came to bid’s good-bye, yammerin’ an’ whinin’ o’er the acres o’ paint he’d lavished on the _Lammergeyer_.

“‘I look to you to retrieve it,’ says he. ‘I look to you to reimburse me! ’Fore God, why are ye not cast off? Are ye dawdlin’ in dock for a purpose?’

“‘What odds, McRimmon?’ says Bell. ‘We’ll be a day behind the fair at Liverpool. The _Grotkau_’s got all the freight that might ha’ been ours an’ the _Lammergeyer_’s.’ McRimmon laughed an’ chuckled—the pairfect eemage o’ senile dementia. Ye ken his eyebrows wark up an’ down like a gorilla’s.

“‘Ye’re under sealed orders,’ said he, tee-heein’ an’ scratchin’ himself. ‘Yon’s they’—to be opened _seriatim_.

“Says Bell, shufflin’ the envelopes when the auld man had gone ashore: ‘We’re to creep round a’ the south coast, standin’ in for orders—this weather, too. There’s no question o’ his lunacy now.’

“Well, we buttocked the auld _Kite_ along—vara bad weather we made—standin’ in all alongside for telegraphic orders, which are the curse o’ skippers. Syne we made over to Holyhead, an’ Bell opened the last envelope for the last instructions. I was wi’ him in the cuddy, an’ he threw it over to me, cryin’: ‘Did ye ever know the like, Mac?’

“I’ll no say what McRimmon had written, but he was far from mad. There was a sou’wester brewin’ when we made the mouth o’ the Mersey, a bitter cold morn wi’ a grey-green sea and a grey-green sky—Liverpool weather, as they say; an’ there we lay choppin’, an’ the crew swore. Ye canna keep secrets aboard ship. They thought McRimmon was mad, too.

“Syne we saw the _Grotkau_ rollin’ oot on the top o’ flood, deep an’ double deep, wi’ her new-painted funnel an’ her new-painted boats an’ a’. She looked her name, an’, moreover, she coughed like it. Calder tauld me at Radley’s what ailed his engines, but my own ear would ha’ told me twa mile awa’, by the beat o’ them. Round we came, plungin’ an’ squatterin’ in her wake, an’ the wind cut wi’ good promise o’ more to come. By six it blew hard but clear, an’ before the middle watch it was a sou’wester in airnest.

“‘She’ll edge into Ireland, this gait,’ says Bell. I was with him on the bridge, watchin’ the _Grotkau’s_ port light. Ye canna see green so far as red, or we’d ha’ kept to leeward. We’d no passengers to consider, an’ (all eyes being on the _Grotkau_) we fair walked into a liner rampin’ home to Liverpool. Or, to be preceese, Bell no more than twisted the _Kite_ oot from under her bows, and there was a little damnin’ betwix’ the twa bridges. “Noo a passenger”—McPhee regarded me benignantly—“wad ha’ told the papers that as soon as he got to the Customs. We stuck to the _Grotkau’s_ tail that night an’ the next twa days—she slowed down to five knot by my reckonin’ and we lapped along the weary way to the Fastnet.”

“But you don’t go by the Fastnet to get to any South American port, do you?” I said.

“_We_ do not. We prefer to go as direct as may be. But we were followin’ the _Grotkau_, an’ she’d no walk into that gale for ony consideration. Knowin’ what I did to her discredit, I couldna blame young Bannister. It was warkin’ up to a North Atlantic winter gale, snow an’ sleet an’ a perishin’ wind. Eh, it was like the Deil walkin’ abroad o’ the surface o’ the deep, whuppin’ off the top o’ the waves before he made up his mind. They’d bore up against it so far, but the minute she was clear o’ the Skelligs she fair tucked up her skirts an’ ran for it by Dunmore Head. Wow, she rolled!

“‘She’ll be makin’ Smerwick,’ says Bell.

“‘She’d ha’ tried for Ventry by noo if she meant that,’ I said.

“‘They’ll roll the funnel oot o’ her, this gait,’ says Bell. ‘Why canna Bannister keep her head to sea?’

“It’s the tail-shaft. Ony rollin’s better than pitchin’ wi’ superfeecial cracks in the tail-shaft. Calder knows that much,’ I said.

“‘It’s ill wark retreevin’ steamers this weather,’ said Bell. His beard and whiskers were frozen to his oilskin, an’ the spray was white on the weather side of him. Pairfect North Atlantic winter weather!

“One by one the sea raxed away our three boats, an’ the davits were crumpled like ram’s horns.

“‘Yon’s bad,’ said Bell, at the last. ‘Ye canna pass a hawser wi’oot a boat.’ Bell was a vara judeecious man—for an Aberdonian.

“I’m not one that fashes himself for eventualities outside the engine-room, so I e’en slipped down betwixt waves to see how the _Kite_ fared. Man, she’s the best geared boat of her class that ever left Clyde! Kinloch, my second, knew her as well as I did. I found him dryin’ his socks on the main-steam, an’ combin’ his whiskers wi’ the comb Janet gied me last year, for the warld an’ a’ as though we were in port. I tried the feed, speered into the stoke-hole, thumbed all bearin’s, spat on the thrust for luck, gied ’em my blessin’, an’ took Kinloch’s socks before I went up to the bridge again.

“Then Bell handed me the wheel, an’ went below to warm himself. When he came up my gloves were frozen to the spokes an’ the ice clicked over my eyelids. Pairfect North Atlantic winter weather, as I was sayin’.

“The gale blew out by night, but we lay in smotherin’ cross-seas that made the auld _Kite_ chatter from stem to stern. I slowed to thirty-four, I mind—no, thirty-seven. There was a long swell the morn, an’ the _Grotkau_ was headin’ into it west awa’.

“‘She’ll win to Rio yet, tail-shaft or no tail-shaft,’ says Bell.

“‘Last night shook her,’ I said. ‘She’ll jar it off yet, mark my word.’

“We were then, maybe, a hunder and fifty mile westsou’west o’ Slyne Head, by dead reckonin’. Next day we made a hunder an’ thirty—ye’ll note we were not racin-boats—an’ the day after a hunder an’ sixty-one, an’ that made us, we’ll say, Eighteen an’ a bittock west, an’ maybe Fifty-one an’ a bittock north, crossin’ all the North Atlantic liner lanes on the long slant, always in sight o’ the _Grotkau_, creepin’ up by night and fallin’ awa’ by day. After the gale it was cold weather wi’ dark nights.

“I was in the engine-room on Friday night, just before the middle watch, when Bell whustled down the tube: ‘She’s done it’; an’ up I came.

“The _Grotkau_ was just a fair distance south, an’ one by one she ran up the three red lights in a vertical line—the sign of a steamer not under control.

“‘Yon’s a tow for us,’ said Bell, lickin’ his chops. ‘She’ll be worth more than the _Breslau_. We’ll go down to her, McPhee!’

“‘Bide a while,’ I said. ‘The seas fair throng wi’ ships here.’

“‘Reason why,’ said Bell. ‘It’s a fortune gaun beggin’. What d’ ye think, man?’

“‘Gie her till daylight. She knows we’re here. If Bannister needs help he’ll loose a rocket.’

“‘Wha told ye Bannister’s need? We’ll ha’ some rag-an’-bone tramp snappin’ her up under oor nose,’ said he; an’ he put the wheel over. We were goin’ slow.

“‘Bannister wad like better to go home on a liner an’ eat in the saloon. Mind ye what they said o’ Holdock & Steiner’s food that night at Radley’s? Keep her awa’, man—keep her awa’. A tow’s a tow, but a derelict’s big salvage.’

“‘E-eh!’ said Bell. ‘Yon’s an inshot o’ yours, Mac. I love ye like a brother. We’ll bide whaur we are till daylight’; an’ he kept her awa’.

“Syne up went a rocket forward, an’ twa on the bridge, an’ a blue light aft. Syne a tar-barrel forward again.

“‘She’s sinkin’,’ said Bell. ‘It’s all gaun, an’ I’ll get no more than a pair o’ night-glasses for pickin’ up young Bannister—the fool!’

“‘Fair an’ soft again,’ I said. ‘She’s signallin’ to the south of us. Bannister knows as well as I that one rocket would bring the _Kite_. He’ll no be wastin’ fireworks for nothin’. Hear her ca’!’

“The _Grotkau_ whustled an’ whustled for five minutes, an’ then there were more fireworks—a regular exhibeetion.

“‘That’s no for men in the regular trade,’ says Bell. ‘Ye’re right, Mac. That’s for a cuddy full o’ passengers.’ He blinked through the night-glasses when it lay a bit thick to southward.

“‘What d’ ye make of it?’ I said.

“‘Liner,’ he says. ‘Yon’s her rocket. Ou, ay; they’ve waukened the gold-strapped skipper, an’—noo they’ve waukened the passengers. They’re turnin’ on the electrics, cabin by cabin. Yon’s anither rocket! They’re comin’ up to help the perishin’ in deep watters.’

“‘Gie me the glass,’ I said. But Bell danced on the bridge, clean dementit. ‘Mails-mails-mails!’ said he. ‘Under contract wi’ the Government for the due conveyance o’ the mails; an’ as such, Mac, ye’ll note, she may rescue life at sea, but she canna tow!—she canna tow! Yon’s her night-signal. She’ll be up in half an hour!’

“‘Gowk!’ I said, ‘an’ we blazin’ here wi’ all oor lights. Oh, Bell, ye’re a fool!’

“He tumbled off the bridge forward, an’ I tumbled aft, an’ before ye could wink our lights were oot, the engine-room hatch was covered, an’ we lay pitch-dark, watchin’ the lights o’ the liner come up that the _Grotkau_’d been signallin’ to. Twenty knot an hour she came, every cabin lighted, an’ her boats swung awa’. It was grandly done, an’ in the inside of an hour. She stopped like Mrs. Holdock’s machine; down went the gangway, down went the boats, an’ in ten minutes we heard the passengers cheerin’, an’ awa’ she fled.

“‘They’ll tell o’ this all the days they live,’ said Bell. ‘A rescue at sea by night, as pretty as a play. Young Bannister an’ Calder will be drinkin’ in the saloon, an’ six months hence the Board o’ Trade ’ll gie the skipper a pair o’ binoculars. It’s vara philanthropic all round.’

“We’ll lay by till day—ye may think we waited for it wi’ sore eyes an’ there sat the _Grotkau_, her nose a bit cocked, just leerin’ at us. She looked paifectly ridiculous.

“‘She’ll be fillin’ aft,’ says Bell; ‘for why is she down by the stern? The tail-shaft’s punched a hole in her, an’—we ’ve no boats. There’s three hunder thousand pound sterlin’, at a conservative estimate, droonin’ before our eyes. What’s to do?’ An’ his bearin’s got hot again in a minute: he was an incontinent man.

“‘Run her as near as ye daur,’ I said. ‘Gie me a jacket an’ a lifeline, an’ I’ll swum for it.’ There was a bit lump of a sea, an’ it was cold in the wind—vara cold; but they’d gone overside like passengers, young Bannister an’ Calder an’ a’, leaving the gangway down on the lee-side. It would ha’ been a flyin’ in the face o’ manifest Providence to overlook the invitation. We were within fifty yards o’ her while Kinloch was garmin’ me all over wi’ oil behind the galley; an’ as we ran past I went outboard for the salvage o’ three hunder thousand pound. Man, it was perishin’ cold, but I’d done my job judgmatically, an’ came scrapin’ all along her side slap on to the lower gratin’ o’ the gangway. No one more astonished than me, I assure ye. Before I’d caught my breath I’d skinned both my knees on the gratin’, an’ was climbin’ up before she rolled again. I made my line fast to the rail, an’ squattered aft to young Bannister’s cabin, whaaur I dried me wi’ everything in his bunk, an’ put on every conceivable sort o’ rig I found till the blood was circulatin’. Three pair drawers, I mind I found—to begin upon—an’ I needed them all. It was the coldest cold I remember in all my experience.

“Syne I went aft to the engine-room. The _Grotkau_ sat on her own tail, as they say. She was vara shortshafted, an’ her gear was all aft. There was four or five foot o’ water in the engine-room slummockin’ to and fro, black an’ greasy; maybe there was six foot. The stoke-hold doors were screwed home, an’ the stoke-hold was tight enough, but for a minute the mess in the engine-room deceived me. Only for a minute, though, an’ that was because I was not, in a manner o’ speakin’, as calm as ordinar’. I looked again to mak’ sure. ’T was just black wi’ bilge: dead watter that must ha’ come in fortuitously, ye ken.”

“McPhee, I’m only a passenger,” I said, “but you don’t persuade me that six foot o’ water can come into an engine-room fortuitously.”

“Who’s tryin’ to persuade one way or the other?” McPhee retorted. “I’m statin’ the facts o’ the case—the simple, natural facts. Six or seven foot o’ dead watter in the engine-room is a vara depressin’ sight if ye think there’s like to be more comin’; but I did not consider that such was likely, and so, yell note, I was not depressed.”

“That’s all very well, but I want to know about the water,” I said.

“I’ve told ye. There was six feet or more there, wi’ Calder’s cap floatin’ on top.”

“Where did it come from?”

“Weel, in the confusion o’ things after the propeller had dropped off an’ the engines were racin’ an’ a’, it’s vara possible that Calder might ha’ lost it off his head an’ no troubled himself to pick it up again. I remember seem’ that cap on him at Southampton.”

“I don’t want to know about the cap. I’m asking where the water came from and what it was doing there, and why you were so certain that it wasn’t a leak, McPhee?”

“For good reason—for good an’ sufficient reason.”

“Give it to me, then.”

“Weel, it’s a reason that does not properly concern myself only. To be preceese, I’m of opinion that it was due, the watter, in part to an error o’ judgment in another man. We can a’ mak’ mistakes.”

“Oh, I beg your pardon?”

“I got me to the rail again, an’, ‘What’s wrang?’ said Bell, hailin’.

“‘She’ll do,’ I said. ‘Send’s o’er a hawser, an’ a man to steer. I’ll pull him in by the life-line.’

“I could see heads bobbin’ back an’ forth, an’ a whuff or two o’ strong words. Then Bell said: ‘They’ll not trust themselves—one of ’em—in this watter—except Kinloch, an’ I’ll no spare him.’

“‘The more salvage to me, then,’ I said. ‘I’ll make shift _solo_.’

“Says one dock-rat, at this: ‘D’ ye think she’s safe?’

“‘I’ll guarantee ye nothing,’ I said, ‘except maybe a hammerin’ for keepin’ me this long.’

“Then he sings out: ‘There’s no more than one lifebelt, an’ they canna find it, or I’d come.’

“‘Throw him over, the Jezebel,’ I said, for I was oot o’ patience; an’ they took haud o’ that volunteer before he knew what was in store, and hove him over, in the bight of my life-line. So I e’en hauled him upon the sag of it, hand over fist—a vara welcome recruit when I’d tilted the salt watter oot of him: for, by the way, he could na swim.

“Syne they bent a twa-inch rope to the life-line, an’ a hawser to that, an’ I led the rope o’er the drum of a hand-winch forward, an’ we sweated the hawser inboard an’ made it fast to the _Grotkau’s_ bitts.

“Bell brought the _Kite_ so close I feared she’d roll in an’ do the _Grotkau’s_ plates a mischief. He hove anither life-line to me, an’ went astern, an’ we had all the weary winch work to do again wi’ a second hawser. For all that, Bell was right: we’d along tow before us, an’ though Providence had helped us that far, there was no sense in leavin’ too much to its keepin’. When the second hawser was fast, I was wet wi’ sweat, an’ I cried Bell to tak’ up his slack an’ go home. The other man was by way o’ helpin’ the work wi’ askin’ for drinks, but I e’en told him he must hand reef an’ steer, beginnin’ with steerin’, for I was goin’ to turn in. He steered—oh, ay, he steered, in a manner o’ speakin’. At the least, he grippit the spokes an’ twiddled ’em an’ looked wise, but I doubt if the _Hoor_ ever felt it. I turned in there an’ then, to young Bannister’s bunk, an’ slept past expression. I waukened ragin’ wi’ hunger, a fair lump o’ sea runnin’, the _Kite_ snorin’ awa’ four knots an hour; an’ the _Grotkau_ slappin’ her nose under, an’ yawin’ an’ standin’ over at discretion. She was a most disgracefu’ tow. But the shameful thing of all was the food. I raxed me a meal fra galley-shelves an’ pantries an’ lazareetes an’ cubby-holes that I would not ha’ gied to the mate of a Cardiff collier; an’ ye ken we say a Cardiff mate will eat clinkers to save waste. I’m sayin’ it was simply vile! The crew had written what _they_ thought of it on the new paint o’ the fo’c’sle, but I had not a decent soul wi’ me to complain on. There was nothin’ for me to do save watch the hawsers an’ the _Kite’s_ tail squatterin’ down in white watter when she lifted to a sea; so I got steam on the after donkey-pump, an’ pumped oot the engine-room. There’s no sense in leavin’ waiter loose in a ship. When she was dry, I went doun the shaft-tunnel, an’ found she was leakin’ a little through the stuffin’box, but nothin’ to make wark. The propeller had e’en jarred off, as I knew it must, an’ Calder had been waitin’ for it to go wi’ his hand on the gear. He told me as much when I met him ashore. There was nothin’ started or strained. It had just slipped awa’ to the bed o’ the Atlantic as easy as a man dyin’ wi’ due warning—a most providential business for all concerned. Syne I took stock o’ the _Grotkau’s_ upper works. Her boats had been smashed on the davits, an’ here an’ there was the rail missin’, an’ a ventilator or two had fetched awa’, an’ the bridge-rails were bent by the seas; but her hatches were tight, and she’d taken no sort of harm. Dod, I came to hate her like a human bein’, for I was eight weary days aboard, starvin’—ay, starvin’—within a cable’s length o’ plenty. All day I laid in the bunk reading the _Woman-Hater_, the grandest book Charlie Reade ever wrote, an’ pickin’ a toothful here an’ there. It was weary, weary work. Eight days, man, I was aboard the _Grotkau_, an’ not one full meal did I make. Sma’ blame her crew would not stay by her. The other man? Oh I warked him wi’ a vengeance to keep him warm.

“It came on to blow when we fetched soundin’s, an’ that kept me standin’ by the hawsers, lashed to the capstan, breathin’ twixt green seas. I near died o’ cauld an’ hunger, for the _Grotkau_ towed like a barge, an’ Bell howkit her along through or over. It was vara thick up-Channel, too. We were standin’ in to make some sort o’ light, an’ we near walked over twa three fishin’-boats, an’ they cried us we were overclose to Falmouth. Then we were near cut down by a drunken foreign fruiter that was blunderin’ between us an’ the shore, and it got thicker an’ thicker that night, an’ I could feel by the tow Bell did not know whaur he was. Losh, we knew in the morn, for the wind blew the fog oot like a candle, an’ the sun came clear; and as surely as McRimmon gied me my cheque, the shadow o’ the Eddystone lay across our tow-rope! We were that near—ay, we were that near! Bell fetched the _Kite_ round with the jerk that came close to tearin’ the bitts out o’ the _Grotkau;_ an’ I mind I thanked my Maker in young Bannister’s cabin when we were inside Plymouth breakwater.

“The first to come aboard was McRimmon, wi’ Dandie. Did I tell you our orders were to take anything we found into Plymouth? The auld deil had just come down overnight, puttin’ two an’ two together from what Calder had told him when the liner landed the _Grotkau’s_ men. He had preceesely hit oor time. I’d hailed Bell for something to eat, an’ he sent it o’er in the same boat wi’ McRimmon, when the auld man came to me. He grinned an’ slapped his legs and worked his eyebrows the while I ate.

“‘How do Holdock, Steiner & Chase feed their men?’ said he.

“‘Ye can see,’ I said, knockin’ the top off another beer-bottle. ‘I did not sign to be starved, McRimmon.’

“‘Nor to swim, either,’ said he, for Bell had tauld him how I carried the line aboard. ‘Well, I’m thinkin’ you’ll be no loser. What freight could we ha’ put into the _Lammergeyer_ would equal salvage on four hunder thousand pounds—hull an’ cargo? Eh, McPhee? This cuts the liver out o’ Holdock, Steiner, Chase & Company, Limited. Eh, McPhee? An’ I’m sufferin’ from senile dementia now? Eh, McPhee? An’ I’m not daft, am I, till I begin to paint the _Lammergeyer?_ Eh, McPhee? Ye may weel lift your leg, Dandie! I ha’ the laugh o’ them all. Ye found watter in the engine-room?’

“‘To speak wi’oot prejudice,’ I said, ‘there was some watter.’

“‘They thought she was sinkin’ after the propeller went. She filled wi’ extraordinary rapeedity. Calder said it grieved him an’ Bannister to abandon her.’

“I thought o’ the dinner at Radley’s, an’ what like o’ food I’d eaten for eight days.

“‘It would grieve them sore,’ I said.

“‘But the crew would not hear o’ stayin’ and workin’ her back under canvas. They’re gaun up an’ down sayin’ they’d ha’ starved first.’

“‘They’d ha’ starved if they’d stayed,’ said I.

“‘I tak’ it, fra Calder’s account, there was a mutiny a’most.’

“‘Ye know more than I, McRimmon,’ I said. ‘Speakin’ wi’oot prejudice, for we’re all in the same boat, _who_ opened the bilgecock?’

“‘Oh, that’s it—is it?’ said the auld man, an’ I could see he was surprised. ‘A bilge-cock, ye say?’

“‘I believe it was a bilge-cock. They were all shut when I came aboard, but some one had flooded the engine-room eight feet over all, and shut it off with the worm-an’-wheel gear from the second gratin’ afterwards.’

“‘Losh!’ said McRimmon. ‘The ineequity o’ man’s beyond belief. But it’s awfu’ discreditable to Holdock, Steiner & Chase, if that came oot in court.’

“‘It’s just my own curiosity,’ I said.

“‘Aweel, Dandie’s afflicted wi’ the same disease. Dandie, strive against curiosity, for it brings a little dog into traps an’ suchlike. Whaur was the _Kite_ when yon painted liner took off the _Grotkau’s_ people?’

“‘Just there or thereabouts,’ I said.

“‘An’ which o’ you twa thought to cover your lights?’ said he, winkin’.

“‘Dandle,’ I said to the dog, ‘we must both strive against curiosity. It’s an unremunerative business. What’s our chance o’ salvage, Dandie?’

“He laughed till he choked. ‘Tak’ what I gie you, McPhee, an’ be content,’ he said. ‘Lord, how a man wastes time when he gets old. Get aboard the Kite, mon, as soon as ye can. I’ve clean forgot there’s a Baltic charter yammerin’ for you at London. That’ll be your last voyage, I’m thinkin’, excep’ by way o’ pleasure.’

“Steiner’s men were comin’ aboard to take charge an’ tow her round, an’ I passed young Steiner in a boat as I went to the _Kite_. He looked down his nose; but McRimmon pipes up: ‘Here’s the man ye owe the _Grotkau_ to—at a price, Steiner—at a price! Let me introduce Mr. McPhee to you. Maybe ye’ve met before; but ye’ve vara little luck in keepin’ your men—ashore or afloat!’

“Young Steiner looked angry enough to eat him as he chuckled an’ whustled in his dry old throat.

“‘Ye’ve not got your award yet,’ Steiner says.

“‘Na, na,’ says the auld man, in a screech ye could hear to the Hoe, ‘but I’ve twa million sterlin’, an’ no bairns, ye Judeeas Apella, if ye mean to fight; an’ I’ll match ye p’und for p’und till the last p’und’s oot. Ye ken _me_, Steiner! I’m McRimmon o’ McNaughten & McRimmon!’

“‘Dod,’ he said betwix’ his teeth, sittin’ back in the boat, ‘I’ve waited fourteen year to break that Jewfirm, an’ God be thankit I’ll do it now.’

“The _Kite_ was in the Baltic while the auld man was warkin’ his warks, but I know the assessors valued the _Grotkau_, all told, at over three hunder and sixty thousand—her manifest was a treat o’ richness—an’ McRimmon got a third for salvin’ an abandoned ship. Ye see, there’s vast deeference between towin’ a ship wi’ men on her an’ pickin’ up a derelict—a vast deeference—in pounds sterlin’. Moreover, twa three o’ the _Grotkau’s_ crew were burnin’ to testify about food, an’ there was a note o’ Calder to the Board, in regard to the tail-shaft, that would ha’ been vara damagin’ if it had come into court. They knew better than to fight.

“Syne the _Kite_ came back, an’ McRimmon paid off me an’ Bell personally, an’ the rest of the crew _pro rata_, I believe it’s ca’ed. My share—oor share, I should say—was just twenty-five thousand pound sterlin’.”

At this point Janet jumped up and kissed him.

“Five-and-twenty thousand pound sterlin’. Noo, I’m fra the North, and I’m not the like to fling money awa’ rashly, but I’d gie six months’ pay—one hunder an’ twenty pounds—to know _who_ flooded the engine-room of the _Grotkau_. I’m fairly well acquaint wi’ McRimmon’s eediosyncrasies, and _he_’d no hand in it. It was not Calder, for I’ve asked him, an’ he wanted to fight me. It would be in the highest degree unprofessional o’ Calder—not fightin’, but openin’ bilge-cocks—but for a while I thought it was him. Ay, I judged it might be him—under temptation.”

“What’s your theory?” I demanded.

“Weel, I’m inclined to think it was one o’ those singular providences that remind us we’re in the hands o’ Higher Powers.”

“It couldn’t open and shut itself?”

“I did not mean that; but some half-starvin’ oiler or, maybe, trimmer must ha’ opened it awhile to mak’ sure o’ leavin’ the _Grotkau_. It’s a demoralisin’ thing to see an engine-room flood up after any accident to the gear—demoralisin’ and deceptive both. Aweel, the man got what he wanted, for they went aboard the liner cryin’ that the _Grotkau_ was sinkin’. But it’s curious to think o’ the consequences. In a’ human probability, he’s bein’ damned in heaps at the present moment aboard another tramp freighter; an’ here am I, wi’ five-an’-twenty thousand pound invested, resolute to go to sea no more—providential’s the preceese word—except as a passenger, ye’ll understand, Janet.”

McPhee kept his word. He and Janet went for a voyage as passengers in the first-class saloon. They paid seventy pounds for their berths; and Janet found a very sick woman in the second-class saloon, so that for sixteen days she lived below, and chatted with the stewardesses at the foot of the second-saloon stairs while her patient slept. McPhee was a passenger for exactly twenty-four hours. Then the engineers’ mess—where the oilcloth tables are—joyfully took him to its bosom, and for the rest of the voyage that company was richer by the unpaid services of a highly certificated engineer.

AN ERROR IN THE FOURTH DIMENSION

Before he was thirty, he discovered that there was no one to play with him. Though the wealth of three toilsome generations stood to his account, though his tastes in the matter of books, bindings, rugs, swords, bronzes, lacquer, pictures, plate, statuary, horses, conservatories, and agriculture were educated and catholic, the public opinion of his country wanted to know why he did not go to office daily, as his father had before him.

So he fled, and they howled behind him that he was an unpatriotic Anglomaniac, born to consume fruits, one totally lacking in public spirit. He wore an eyeglass; he had built a wall round his country house, with a high gate that shut, instead of inviting America to sit on his flower-beds; he ordered his clothes from England; and the press of his abiding city cursed him, from his eye-glass to his trousers, for two consecutive days.

When he rose to light again, it was where nothing less than the tents of an invading army in Piccadilly would make any difference to anybody. If he had money and leisure, England stood ready to give him all that money and leisure could buy. That price paid, she would ask no questions. He took his cheque-book and accumulated things—warily at first, for he remembered that in America things own the man. To his delight, he discovered that in England he could put his belongings under his feet; for classes, ranks, and denominations of people rose, as it were, from the earth, and silently and discreetly took charge of his possessions. They had been born and bred for that sole purpose—servants of the cheque-book. When that was at an end they would depart as mysteriously as they had come.

The impenetrability of this regulated life irritated him, and he strove to learn something of the human side of these people. He retired baffled, to be trained by his menials. In America, the native demoralises the English servant. In England, the servant educates the master. Wilton Sargent strove to learn all they taught as ardently as his father had striven to wreck, before capture, the railways of his native land; and it must have been some touch of the old bandit railway blood that bade him buy, for a song, Holt Hangars, whose forty-acre lawn, as every one knows, sweeps down in velvet to the quadruple tracks of the Great Buchonian Railway. Their trains flew by almost continuously, with a bee-like drone in the day and a flutter of strong wings at night. The son of Merton Sargent had good right to be interested in them. He owned controlling interests in several thousand miles of track,—not permanent way,—built on altogether different plans, where locomotives eternally whistled for grade-crossings, and parlor-cars of fabulous expense and unrestful design skated round curves that the Great Buchonian would have condemned as unsafe in a construction-line. From the edge of his lawn he could trace the chaired metals falling away, rigid as a bowstring, into the valley of the Prest, studded with the long perspective of the block signals, buttressed with stone, and carried, high above all possible risk, on a forty-foot embankment.

Left to himself, he would have builded a private car, and kept it at the nearest railway-station, Amberley Royal, five miles away. But those into whose hands he had committed himself for his English training had little knowledge of railways and less of private cars. The one they knew was something that existed in the scheme of things for their convenience. The other they held to be “distinctly American”; and, with the versatility of his race, Wilton Sargent had set out to be just a little more English than the English.

He succeeded to admiration. He learned not to redecorate Holt Hangars, though he warmed it; to leave his guests alone; to refrain from superfluous introductions; to abandon manners of which he had great store, and to hold fast by manner which can after labour be acquired. He learned to let other people, hired for the purpose, attend to the duties for which they were paid. He learned—this he got from a ditcher on the estate—that every man with whom he came in contact had his decreed position in the fabric of the realm, which position he would do well to consult. Last mystery of all, he learned to golf—well: and when an American knows the innermost meaning of “Don’t press, slow back, and keep your eye on the ball,” he is, for practical purposes, denationalised.

His other education proceeded on the pleasantest lines. Was he interested in any conceivable thing in heaven above, or the earth beneath, or the waters under the earth? Forthwith appeared at his table, guided by those safe hands into which he had fallen, the very men who had best said, done, written, explored, excavated, built, launched, created, or studied that one thing—herders of books and prints in the British Museum; specialists in scarabs, cartouches, and dynasties Egyptian; rovers and raiders from the heart of unknown lands; toxicologists; orchid-hunters; monographers on flint implements, carpets, prehistoric man, or early Renaissance music. They came, and they played with him. They asked no questions; they cared not so much as a pin who or what he was. They demanded only that he should be able to talk and listen courteously. Their work was done elsewhere and out of his sight.

There were also women.

“Never,” said Wilton Sargent to himself, “has an American seen England as I’m seeing it”; and he thought, blushing beneath the bedclothes, of the unregenerate and blatant days when he would steam to office, down the Hudson, in his twelve-hundred-ton ocean-going steam-yacht, and arrive, by gradations, at Bleecker Street, hanging on to a leather strap between an Irish washerwoman and a German anarchist. If any of his guests had seen him then they would have said: “How distinctly American!” and—Wilton did not care for that tone. He had schooled himself to an English walk, and, so long as he did not raise it, an English voice. He did not gesticulate with his hands; he sat down on most of his enthusiasms, but he could not rid himself of The Shibboleth. He would ask for the Worcestershire sauce: even Howard, his immaculate butler, could not break him of this.

It was decreed that he should complete his education in a wild and wonderful manner, and, further, that I should be in at that death.

Wilton had more than once asked me to Holt Hangars, for the purpose of showing how well the new life fitted him, and each time I had declared it creaseless. His third invitation was more informal than the others, and he hinted of some matter in which he was anxious for my sympathy or counsel, or both. There is room for an infinity of mistakes when a man begins to take liberties with his nationality; and I went down expecting things. A seven-foot dog-cart and a groom in the black Holt Hangars livery met me at Amberley Royal. At Holt Hangars I was received by a person of elegance and true reserve, and piloted to my luxurious chamber. There were no other guests in the house, and this set me thinking.

Wilton came into my room about half an hour before dinner, and though his face was masked with a drop-curtain of highly embroidered indifference, I could see that he was not at ease. In time, for he was then almost as difficult to move as one of my own countrymen, I extracted the tale—simple in its extravagance, extravagant in its simplicity. It seemed that Hackman of the British Museum had been staying with him about ten days before, boasting of scarabs. Hackman has a way of carrying really priceless antiquities on his tie-ring and in his trouser pockets. Apparently, he had intercepted something on its way to the Boulak Museum which, he said, was “a genuine Amen-Hotepa queen’s scarab of the Fourth Dynasty.” Now Wilton had bought from Cassavetti, whose reputation is not above suspicion, a scarab of much the same scarabeousness, and had left it in his London chambers. Hackman at a venture, but knowing Cassavetti, pronounced it an imposition. There was long discussion—savant _versus_ millionaire, one saying: “But I know it cannot be”; and the other: “But I can and will prove it.” Wilton found it necessary for his soul’s satisfaction to go up to town, then and there,—a forty-mile run,—and bring back the scarab before dinner. It was at this point that he began to cut corners with disastrous results. Amberley Royal station being five miles away, and putting in of horses a matter of time, Wilton had told Howard, the immaculate butler, to signal the next train to stop; and Howard, who was more of a man of resource than his master gave him credit for, had, with the red flag of the ninth hole of the links which crossed the bottom of the lawn, signalled vehemently to the first down-train; and it had stopped. Here Wilton’s account became confused. He attempted, it seems, to get into that highly indignant express, but a guard restrained him with more or less force—hauled him, in fact, backyards from the window of a locked carriage. Wilton must have struck the gravel with some vehemence, for the consequences, he admitted, were a free fight on the line in which he lost his hat, and was at last dragged into the guard’s van and set down breathless.

He had pressed money upon the man, and very foolishly had explained everything but his name. This he clung to, for he had a vision of tall head-lines in the New York papers, and well knew no son of Merton Sargent could expect mercy that side the water. The guard, to Wilton’s amazement, refused the money on the grounds that this was a matter for the Company to attend to. Wilton insisted on his incognito, and, therefore, found two policemen waiting for him at St. Botolph terminus. When he expressed a wish to buy a new hat and telegraph to his friends, both policemen with one voice warned him that whatever he said would be used as evidence against him; and this had impressed Wilton tremendously.

“They were so infernally polite,” he said. “If they had clubbed me I wouldn’t have cared; but it was, ‘Step this way, sir,’ and, ‘Up those stairs, please, sir,’ till they jailed me—jailed me like a common drunk, and I had to stay in a filthy little cubby-hole of a cell all night.”

“That comes of not giving your name and not wiring your lawyer,” I replied. “What did you get?”

“Forty shillings, or a month,” said Wilton, promptly,—“next morning bright and early. They were working us off, three a minute. A girl in a pink hat—she was brought in at three in the morning—got ten days. I suppose I was lucky. I must have knocked his senses out of the guard. He told the old duck on the bench that I had told him I was a sergeant in the army, and that I was gathering beetles on the track. That comes of trying to explain to an Englishman.”

“And you?”

“Oh, I said nothing. I wanted to get out. I paid my fine, and bought a new hat, and came up here before noon next morning. There were a lot of people in the house, and I told ’em I’d been unavoidably detained, and then they began to recollect engagements elsewhere. Hackman must have seen the fight on the track and made a story of it. I suppose they thought it was distinctly American—confound ’em! It’s the only time in my life that I’ve ever flagged a train, and I wouldn’t have done it but for that scarab. ’T wouldn’t hurt their old trains to be held up once in a while.”

“Well, it’s all over now,” I said, choking a little. “And your name didn’t get into the papers. It _is_ rather transatlantic when you come to think of it.”

“Over!” Wilton grunted savagely. “It’s only just begun. That trouble with the guard was just common, ordinary assault—merely a little criminal business. The flagging of the train is civil, infernally civil,—and means something quite different. They’re after me for that now.”

“Who?”

“The Great Buchonian. There was a man in court watching the case on behalf of the Company. I gave him my name in a quiet corner before I bought my hat, and—come to dinner now; I’ll show you the results afterwards.” The telling of his wrongs had worked Wilton Sargent into a very fine temper, and I do not think that my conversation soothed him. In the course of the dinner, prompted by a devil of pure mischief, I dwelt with loving insistence on certain smells and sounds of New York which go straight to the heart of the native in foreign parts; and Wilton began to ask many questions about his associates aforetime—men of the New York Yacht Club, Storm King, or the Restigouche, owners of rivers, ranches, and shipping in their playtime, lords of railways, kerosene, wheat, and cattle in their offices. When the green mint came, I gave him a peculiarly oily and atrocious cigar, of the brand they sell in the tessellated, electric-lighted, with expensive-pictures-of-the-nude-adorned bar of the Pandemonium, and Wilton chewed the end for several minutes ere he lit it. The butler left us alone, and the chimney of the oak-panelled dining-room began to smoke.

“That’s another!” said he, poking the fire savagely, and I knew what he meant. One cannot put steam-heat in houses where Queen Elizabeth slept. The steady beat of a night-mail, whirling down the valley, recalled me to business. “What about the Great Buchonian?” I said.

“Come into my study. That’s all—as yet.”

It was a pile of Seidlitz-powders-coloured correspondence, perhaps nine inches high, and it looked very businesslike.

“You can go through it,” said Wilton. “Now I could take a chair and a red flag and go into Hyde Park and say the most atrocious things about your Queen, and preach anarchy and all that, y’ know, till I was hoarse, and no one would take any notice. The Police—damn ’em!—would protect me if I got into trouble. But for a little thing like flagging a dirty little sawed-off train,—running through my own grounds, too,—I get the whole British Constitution down on me as if I sold bombs. I don’t understand it.”

“No more does the Great Buchonian—apparently.” I was turning over the letters. “Here’s the traffic superintendent writing that it’s utterly incomprehensible that any man should... Good heavens, Wilton, you _have_ done it!” I giggled, as I read on.

“What’s funny now?” said my host.

“It seems that you, or Howard for you, stopped the three-forty Northern down.”

“I ought to know that! They all had their knife into me, from the engine-driver up.”

“But it’s _the_ three-forty—the Induna—surely you’ve heard of the Great Buchonian’s Induna!”

“How the deuce am I to know one train from another? They come along about every two minutes.”

“Quite so. But this happens to be the Induna—the one train of the whole line. She’s timed for fifty-seven miles an hour. She was put on early in the Sixties, and she has never been stopped—”

“_I_ know! Since William the Conqueror came over, or King Charles hid in her smoke-stack. You’re as bad as the rest of these Britishers. If she’s been run all that while, it’s time she was flagged once or twice.”

The American was beginning to ooze out all over Wilton, and his small-boned hands were moving restlessly.

“Suppose you flagged the Empire State Express, or the Western Cyclone?”

“Suppose I did. I know Otis Harvey—or used to. I’d send him a wire, and he’d understand it was a ground-hog case with me. That’s exactly what I told this British fossil company here.”

“Have you been answering their letters without legal advice, then?”

“Of course I have.”

“Oh, my Sainted Country! Go ahead, Wilton.”

“I wrote ’em that I’d be very happy to see their president and explain to him in three words all about it; but that wouldn’t do. ’Seems their president must be a god. He was too busy, and—well, you can read for yourself—they wanted explanations. The stationmaster at Amberley Royal—and he grovels before me, as a rule—wanted an explanation, and quick, too. The head sachem at St. Botolph’s wanted three or four, and the Lord High Mukkamuk that oils the locomotives wanted one every fine day. I told ’em—I’ve told ’em about fifty times—I stopped their holy and sacred train because I wanted to board her. Did they think I wanted to feel her pulse?”

“You didn’t say that?”

“‘Feel her pulse’? Of course not.”

“No. ‘Board her.’”

“What else could I say?”

“My dear Wilton, what is the use of Mrs. Sherborne, and the Clays, and all that lot working over you for four years to make an Englishman out of you, if the very first time you’re rattled you go back to the vernacular?”

“I’m through with Mrs. Sherborne and the rest of the crowd. America’s good enough for me. What ought I to have said? ‘Please,’ or ‘thanks awf’ly’ or how?”

There was no chance now of mistaking the man’s nationality. Speech, gesture, and step, so carefully drilled into him, had gone away with the borrowed mask of indifference. It was a lawful son of the Youngest People, whose predecessors were the Red Indian. His voice had risen to the high, throaty crow of his breed when they labour under excitement. His close-set eyes showed by turns unnecessary fear, annoyance beyond reason, rapid and purposeless flights of thought, the child’s lust for immediate revenge, and the child’s pathetic bewilderment, who knocks his head against the bad, wicked table. And on the other side, I knew, stood the Company, as unable as Wilton to understand.

“And I could buy their old road three times over,” he muttered, playing with a paper-knife, and moving restlessly to and fro.

“You didn’t tell ’em _that_, I hope!”

There was no answer; but as I went through the letters, I felt that Wilton must have told them many surprising things. The Great Buchonian had first asked for an explanation of the stoppage of their Induna, and had found a certain levity in the explanation tendered. It then advised “Mr. W. Sargent” to refer his solicitor to their solicitor, or whatever the legal phrase is.

“And you didn’t?” I said, looking up.

“No. They were treating me exactly as if I had been a kid playing on the cable-tracks. There was not the _least_ necessity for any solicitor. Five minutes’ quiet talk would have settled everything.”

I returned to the correspondence. The Great Buchonian regretted that, owing to pressure of business, none of their directors could accept Mr. W. Sargent’s invitation to run down and discuss the difficulty. The Great Buchonian was careful to point out that no animus underlay their action, nor was money their object. Their duty was to protect the interests of their line, and these interests could not be protected if a precedent were established whereby any of the Queen’s subjects could stop a train in mid-career. Again (this was another branch of the correspondence, not more than five heads of departments being concerned), the Company admitted that there was some reasonable doubt as to the duties of express-trains in all crises, and the matter was open to settlement by process of law till an authoritative ruling was obtained—from the House of Lords, if necessary.

“That broke me all up,” said Wilton, who was reading over my shoulder. “I knew I’d struck the British Constitution at last. The House of Lords—my Lord! And, anyway, I’m not one of the Queen’s subjects.”

“Why, I had a notion that you’d got yourself naturalised.”

Wilton blushed hotly as he explained that very many things must happen to the British Constitution ere he took out his papers.

“How does it all strike you?” he said. “Isn’t the Great Buchonian crazy?”

“I don’t know. You’ve done something that no one ever thought of doing before, and the Company don’t know what to make of it. I see they offer to send down their solicitor and another official of the Company to talk things over informally. Then here’s another letter suggesting that you put up a fourteen-foot wall, crowned with bottle-glass, at the bottom of the garden.”

“Talk of British insolence! The man who recommends _that_ (he’s another bloated functionary) says that I shall ‘derive great pleasure from watching the wall going up day by day’! Did you ever dream of such gall? I’ve offered ’em money enough to buy a new set of cars and pension the driver for three generations; but that doesn’t seem to be what they want. They expect me to go to the House of Lords and get a ruling, and build walls between times. Are they _all_ stark, raving mad? One ’ud think I made a profession of flagging trains. How in Tophet was I to know their old Induna from a waytrain? I took the first that came along, and I’ve been jailed and fined for that once already.”

“That was for slugging the guard.”

“He had no right to haul me out when I was half-way through a window.”

“What are you going to do about it?”

“Their lawyer and the other official (can’t they trust their men unless they send ’em in pairs?) are coming here to-night. I told ’em I was busy, as a rule, till after dinner, but they might send along the entire directorate if it eased ’em any.”

Now, after-dinner visiting, for business or pleasure, is the custom of the smaller American town, and not that of England, where the end of the day is sacred to the owner, not the public. Verily, Wilton Sargent had hoisted the striped flag of rebellion!

“Isn’t it time that the humour of the situation began to strike you, Wilton?” I asked.

“Where’s the humour of baiting an American citizen just because he happens to be a millionaire—poor devil.” He was silent for a little time, and then went on: “Of course. _Now_ I see!” He spun round and faced me excitedly. “It’s as plain as mud. These ducks are laying their pipes to skin me.”

“They say explicitly they don’t want money!”

“That’s all a blind. So’s their addressing me as W. Sargent. They know well enough who I am. They know I’m the old man’s son. Why didn’t I think of that before?”

“One minute, Wilton. If you climbed to the top of the dome of St. Paul’s and offered a reward to any Englishman who could tell you who or what Merton Sargent had been, there wouldn’t be twenty men in all London to claim it.”

“That’s their insular provincialism, then. I don’t care a cent. The old man would have wrecked the Great Buchonian before breakfast for a pipe-opener. My God, I’ll do it in dead earnest! I’ll show ’em that they can’t bulldoze a foreigner for flagging one of their little tinpot trains, and—I’ve spent fifty thousand a year here, at least, for the last four years.”

I was glad I was not his lawyer. I re-read the correspondence, notably the letter which recommended him—almost tenderly, I fancied—to build a fourteen-foot brick wall at the end of his garden, and half-way through it a thought struck me which filled me with pure joy.

The footman ushered in two men, frock-coated, grey-trousered, smooth-shaven, heavy of speech and gait. It was nearly nine o’clock, but they looked as newly come from a bath. I could not understand why the elder and taller of the pair glanced at me as though we had an understanding; nor why he shook hands with an unEnglish warmth.

“This simplifies the situation,” he said in an undertone, and, as I stared, he whispered to his companion: “I fear I shall be of very little service at present. Perhaps Mr. Folsom had better talk over the affair with Mr. Sargent.”

“That is what I am here for,” said Wilton.

The man of law smiled pleasantly, and said that he saw no reason why the difficulty should not be arranged in two minutes’ quiet talk. His air, as he sat down opposite Wilton, was soothing to the last degree, and his companion drew me up-stage. The mystery was deepening, but I followed meekly, and heard Wilton say, with an uneasy laugh:

“I’ve had insomnia over this affair, Mr. Folsom. Let’s settle it one way or the other, for heaven’s sake!”

“Ah! Has he suffered much from this lately?” said my man, with a preliminary cough.

“I really can’t say,” I replied.

“Then I suppose you have only lately taken charge here?”

“I came this evening. I am not exactly in charge of anything.”

“I see. Merely to observe the course of events in case—” He nodded.

“Exactly.” Observation, after all, is my trade.

He coughed again slightly, and came to business.

“Now,—I am asking solely for information’s sake,—do you find the delusions persistent?”

“Which delusions?”

“They are variable, then? That is distinctly curious, because—but do I understand that the _type_ of the delusion varies? For example, Mr. Sargent believes that he can buy the Great Buchonian.”

“Did he write you that?”

“He made the offer to the Company—on a half-sheet of note-paper. Now, has he by chance gone to the other extreme, and believed that he is in danger of becoming a pauper? The curious economy in the use of a half-sheet of paper shows that some idea of that kind might have flashed through his mind, and the two delusions can coexist, but it is not common. As you must know, the delusion of vast wealth—the folly of grandeurs, I believe our friends the French call it—is, as a rule, persistent, to the exclusion of all others.”

Then I heard Wilton’s best English voice at the end of the study:

“My _dear_ sir, I have explained twenty times already, I wanted to get that scarab in time for dinner. Suppose you had left an important legal document in the same way?”

“That touch of cunning is very significant,” my fellow-practitioner—since he insisted on it—muttered.

“I am very happy, of course, to meet you; but if you had only sent your president down to dinner here, I could have settled the thing in half a minute. Why, I could have bought the Buchonian from him while your clerks were sending me this.” Wilton dropped his hand heavily on the blue-and-white correspondence, and the lawyer started.

“But, speaking frankly,” the lawyer replied, “it is, if I may say so, perfectly inconceivable, even in the case of the most important legal documents, that any one should stop the three-forty express—the Induna—Our Induna, my dear sir.”

“Absolutely!” my companion echoed; then to me in a lower tone: “You notice, again, the persistent delusion of wealth. _I_ was called in when he wrote us that. You can see it is utterly impossible for the Company to continue to run their trains through the property of a man who may at any moment fancy himself divinely commissioned to stop all traffic. If he had only referred us to his lawyer—but, naturally, _that_ he would not do, under the circumstances. A pity—a great pity. He is so young. By the way, it is curious, is it not, to note the absolute conviction in the voice of those who are similarly afflicted,—heart-rending, I might say, and the inability to follow a chain of connected thought.”

“I can’t see what you want,” Wilton was saying to the lawyer.

“It need not be more than fourteen feet high—a really desirable structure, and it would be possible to grow pear trees on the sunny side.” The lawyer was speaking in an unprofessional voice. “There are few things pleasanter than to watch, so to say, one’s own vine and fig tree in full bearing. Consider the profit and amusement you would derive from it. If _you_ could see your way to doing this, _we_ could arrange all the details with your lawyer, and it is possible that the Company might bear some of the cost. I have put the matter, I trust, in a nutshell. If you, my dear sir, will interest yourself in building that wall, and will kindly give us the name of your lawyers, I dare assure you that you will hear no more from the Great Buchonian.”

“But why am I to disfigure my lawn with a new brick wall?”

“Grey flint is extremely picturesque.”

“Grey flint, then, if you put it that way. Why the dickens must I go building towers of Babylon just because I have held up one of your trains—once?”

“The expression he used in his third letter was that he wished to ‘board her,’” said my companion in my ear. “That was very curious—a marine delusion impinging, as it were, upon a land one. What a marvellous world he must move in—and will before the curtain falls. So young, too—so very young!”

“Well, if you want the plain English of it, I’m damned if I go wall-building to your orders. You can fight it all along the line, into the House of Lords and out again, and get your rulings by the running foot if you like,” said Wilton, hotly. “Great heavens, man, I only did it once!”

“We have at present no guarantee that you may not do it again; and, with our traffic, we must, in justice to our passengers, demand some form of guarantee. It must not serve as a precedent. All this might have been saved if you had only referred us to your legal representative.” The lawyer looked appealingly around the room. The dead-lock was complete.

“Wilton,” I asked, “may I try my hand now?”

“Anything you like,” said Wilton. “It seems I can’t talk English. I won’t build any wall, though.” He threw himself back in his chair.

“Gentlemen,” I said deliberately, for I perceived that the doctor’s mind would turn slowly, “Mr. Sargent has very large interests in the chief railway systems of his own country.”

“His own country?” said the lawyer.

“At that age?” said the doctor.

“Certainly. He inherited them from his father, Mr. Sargent, who was an American.”

“And proud of it,” said Wilton, as though he had been a Western Senator let loose on the Continent for the first time.

“My dear sir,” said the lawyer, half rising, “why did you not acquaint the Company with this fact—this vital fact—early in our correspondence? We should have understood. We should have made allowances.”

“Allowances be damned. Am I a Red Indian or a lunatic?”

The two men looked guilty.

“If Mr. Sargent’s friend had told us as much in the beginning,” said the doctor, very severely, “much might have been saved.” Alas! I had made a life’s enemy of that doctor.

“I hadn’t a chance,” I replied. “Now, of course, you can see that a man who owns several thousand miles of line, as Mr. Sargent does, would be apt to treat railways a shade more casually than other people.”

“Of course; of course. He is an American; that accounts. Still, it _was_ the Induna; but I can quite understand that the customs of our cousins across the water differ in these particulars from ours. And do you always stop trains in this way in the States, Mr. Sargent?”

“I should if occasion ever arose; but I’ve never had to yet. Are you going to make an international complication of the business?”

“You need give yourself no further concern whatever in the matter. We see that there is no likelihood of this action of yours establishing a precedent, which was the only thing we were afraid of. Now that you understand that we cannot reconcile our system to any sudden stoppages, we feel quite sure that—”

“I sha’n’t be staying long enough to flag another train,” Wilton said pensively.

“You are returning, then, to our fellow-kinsmen across the—ah—big pond, you call it?”

“_No_, sir. The ocean—the North Atlantic Ocean. It’s three thousand miles broad, and three miles deep in places. I wish it were ten thousand.”

“I am not so fond of sea-travel myself; but I think it is every Englishman’s duty once in his life to study the great branch of our Anglo-Saxon race across the ocean,” said the lawyer.

“If ever you come over, and care to flag any train on my system, I’ll—I’ll see you through,” said Wilton.

“Thank you—ah, thank you. You’re very kind. I’m sure I should enjoy myself immensely.”

“We have overlooked the fact,” the doctor whispered to me, “that your friend proposed to buy the Great Buchonian.”

“He is worth anything from twenty to thirty million dollars—four to five million pounds,” I answered, knowing that it would be hopeless to explain.

“Really! That is enormous wealth. But the Great Buchonian is not in the market.”

“Perhaps he does not want to buy it now.”

“It would be impossible under any circumstances,” said the doctor.

“How characteristic!” murmured the lawyer, reviewing matters in his mind. “I always understood from books that your countrymen were in a hurry. And so you would have gone forty miles to town and back—before dinner—to get a scarab? How intensely American! But you talk exactly like an Englishman, Mr. Sargent.”

“That is a fault that can be remedied. There’s only one question I’d like to ask you. You said it was inconceivable that any man should stop a train on your road?”

“And so it is—absolutely inconceivable.”

“Any sane man, that is?”

“That is what I meant, of course. I mean, with excep—”

“Thank you.”

The two men departed. Wilton checked himself as he was about to fill a pipe, took one of my cigars instead, and was silent for fifteen minutes.

Then said he: “Have you got a list of the Southampton sailings on you?”

Far away from the greystone wings, the dark cedars, the faultless gravel drives, and the mint-sauce lawns of Holt Hangars runs a river called the Hudson, whose unkempt banks are covered with the palaces of those wealthy beyond the dreams of avarice. Here, where the hoot of the Haverstraw brick-barge-tug answers the howl of the locomotive on either shore, you shall find, with a complete installation of electric light, nickel-plated binnacles, and a calliope attachment to her steam-whistle, the twelve-hundred-ton ocean-going steam-ya