What of the time when our main steam pipe burst in the Irish Sea in a fog? Read in the Chief Mate's log an entry, "_Delayed 2 hrs. 40 min., break-down in engine-room._" Simple, isn't it? But behind those brief words lies a small hell for the Chief Engineer. Behind them lies two hours and forty minutes' frenzied toil in the heat of the boiler-tops, where the arched bunkers keep the air stifling; two hours and forty minutes' work with tools that race and slither to the rolling of the ship, with bolts that burn and blister, with steam that knows no master when she's loose. Literature? Art? Old friend, these gods seem very impotent sometimes. They seem impotent, as when, for instance, my first gauge-glass burst. Pacing up and down in front of my engines, there is a hiss and a roar, and one of my firemen rushes into the engine-room, his right hand clasping the left shoulder convulsively. He has been cut to the bone with a piece of the flying glass. Men of thirty years' sea-time tell me they never have got used to a glass failing. And then the fight with the water and steam in the darkness, the frenzied groping for the wires to shut the cocks, the ceaseless roar of water and steam! A look at the engines, an adjustment of the feed-valves, lest the water get low while I am fitting a new glass, and then to work. How glad one is when one sees that luminous ring, which denotes the water-level, rise "two-thirds glass" once more! And how far from the fine arts is he whose life is one long succession of incidents like these? Can they blame us if we look indulgently upon mere writers and painters? Surely, when the books are opened and the last log is read, when the overlooker calls our names and reads out the indictment "_Lacking culture_," we may stand up manfully and answer as clearly as we can, "Lord, we had our business in great waters." XII In such wise, I imagine, will George the Fourth reply. He is an admirable foil to the Most Wonderful Man on Earth. He regales you with no false sentiment; he is five feet ten in his socks, and he is clamorously indignant when you suggest that he will one day "get married." He considers love to be "damned foolishness," and despises "womanisers." He likes "tarts," has one in most ports of the Atlantic sea-board, and even writes to a certain Mexican enchantress, who lives in a nice little room over a nice little shop in a nice little street in the nice little town of Vera Cruz. What does he write? Frankly I don't know. What does he say, when he has dressed himself in dazzling white raiment and goes ashore in Surabaya or Singapore, and sits down to tea with Japanese girls whose eyes are swollen with belladonna and whose touch communicates fire? How can I answer? "George," I say, "what would your mother think?"