To her just and picturesque demands the Yard opposes the suspicion of Centuries, saying, unofficially: ‘You are all a set of discontented and impenitent thieves. Go away.’ The ship, considering her own comfort and well-being for the rest of the commission, replies, also unofficially: ‘Ah, you’re thinking of the So-and-so. She a nest of pirates if you like: but we’re good. We’re the most upright ship you ever clapped eyes on, and you’re the finest Yard in the Kingdom. You’re up to all the ropes. There’s no getting round you, and you’ll pass our indents. We won’t give you any trouble. Just a few minor repairs, and our own people will carry them out. Don’t disturb yourself in the least. Send the stuff alongside and we’ll attend to it.’ And when the stuff comes alongside in charge of a slow-minded understrapper they do attend to it. They talk the man blind and dumb, sack his cargoes, and turn him adrift to study vouchers at his leisure. Then the First Lieutenant grins like a Cheshire cat; the carpenter, so called because he very rarely deals with wood, the armourer and the first-class artificers sweat with joy, and the workshop lathes buzz and hum. But the understrapper gets particular beans because a great part of his stuff was meant for another ship, and she is very angry about it. STOLEN PAINT Late in the afternoon the defrauded vessel sends over a boat to the _Early_ and wants to know if she has seen or heard anything of some oak baulks, a new gangway grating, some brass-work, and a few drums of white paint. ‘Why, was that yours?’ says the First Lieutenant. ‘We thought it was ours.’ ‘Well, it isn’t. It’s ours. Where is it?’ ‘I’m awfully sorry, but—I say, won’t you come and have a drink?’ They come—just in time to see the brass rods in position, the oak baulks converted into some sort of boat-furniture; the gangway platform receives their weary feet, and a fine flavour of paint from a flat forward tells them all they will ever know of the missing drums. Then they call the First Lieutenant a pirate, and he, poor lamb, says that he was misled by the chuckle-headed understrapper who brought the stuff alongside. Words cannot express the First Lieutenant’s contrition. It is too bad, too bad, but you know what asses these Dockyard chaps can be.’ With soft words and occasional gin and bitters he coaxes the visitors into their boat again, for he has studied diplomacy under West African Kings. They return to their own place, being young and guileless, and their reception is not cordial. Their Captain says openly that he has not one adequate thief in the ship, and that they had better go into the Church. They should have captured the understrapper early in the day. He will speak to the other Captain. And he does, like a brother, next time he meets him, galley passing galley, going to call on the Admiral. ‘You infernal old pirate! What have you done with my paint?’ cries the robbed one.