Upon their exact functions he was hazy; he would know it better no doubt when he had undertaken his functions in the Court of Dowry (the blessed thought warmed him for a moment even in that dreadful dawn!); anyhow, the word “captain” meant something ... it wasn’t like a captain in the army of course ... but then there were captains and captains ... of course the Royal Navy was superior to the Merchant Service ... but it was all the same kind of thing--only upper and lower, like a barrister and a solicitor.... For instance there was the Naval Reserve.... And he remembered a captain upon an Atlantic liner who was a splendid great fellow, and he was sure could tell any one at once. And the captain of Billy’s schooner was better than that because he understood about motor engines. He had just come to the point of remembering that on the P. and O. it was rather a grand thing to dine with the captain, when his mind arrived at its conclusion. He would slip over the side of the big ship, and when the proper time came he would reveal himself to the captain for what he was. The captain would show him every courtesy, he would give him a change of clothes, ready-made but decent, he would know where there was a telephone, he would have authority to speak to the watchman and the rest, he would send for a taxi, and George’s troubles would be over.... George prepared to slip over the side. Now to slip over the side in a book is one thing, but to do it on a real ship is another. The bulwarks were high and greasy and salt and slimy. Demaine was weakened by a night of terrors, and he came down on the hard iron deck of the tramp with a noise resembling distant thunder, and in a manner that hurt him very much indeed. It was a new misadventure and one that had to be repaired. He heard voices and bolted for a large coil of rope which lay beneath the shadow of the turtle-deck. Here the stench, though somewhat different in quality from that of the fishbone manure, was not less noisome, and carried with it a reminiscence of Channel passages which weakened the very soul within George Mulross Demaine. But the sensation was soon swamped in one much more poignant; this was aroused in him by the approach of two inharmonious voices, one of which was borne towards him perpetually clamouring: “Yes ah deed!” While the other repeated as a sort of antiphon: “Noa ee diddun, tha silly fule!” When this dialogue was exhausted the first voice in a lower and much more determined tone hissed: “Ah’ll ave im aowt!” and a large stave which might, for all Demaine knew, be a marlingspike or some other horrid instrument, began rummaging behind the coil of rope. “T’ould man sez ef ah doan catch next ’un ee’ll skin me live!” To this the second voice reiterated his certitude that his companion was a silly fool, and that he had had stowaways upon the brain since he was last made responsible for the presence of one of these supercargoes upon the _Lily_.