The Skipper is in uniform on the bridge, and the Mate is, as usual, in a hurry. The mooring winch is groaning horribly as she hauls on a cable running from the stern to the quay while the tug pulls our head slowly round. Right down to the centre of the loading disc now. The Second Mate rushes to the fiddle-top, and shouts for "more steam"--the winch has stuck--and a howl from below tells him that the donkeyman is doing his best. As I go below again the sharp clang of the telegraph strikes my ear--"_Stand by._" The steam is warming the engine-room, and there is, in the atmosphere down here, a peculiar pungent smell, always present when getting away. It is, I suppose, the smell of steam, if steam has any smell. "Give 'er a turn, Mr. McAlnwick." The Chief looks down from the deck-door, and I answer "All right, sir." We are moving into the locks now, and as I start the little high-speed reversing engine the telegraph pointer moves round to "Slow ahead" with a sharp clang. "Ash-pit dampers off!" cries George the Fourth, and runs to close the drain-cocks. There is a sudden loud hammering as I open the throttle, and she moves away under her own steam. Then she sticks on a dead-centre, _à point du mort_, as the French _mécaniciens_ say, and George rushes to open the intermediate valve, kicking open the water-service cock as he goes past it. At last she goes away, slow, solemn, and steamy, three pairs of eyes watching every link and bar for "trouble." "All right?" asks the Chief from above, and the Second, standing by the staircase, answers "All right, sir." Then "clang" goes the telegraph round to "Stop," and I close the throttle. "We're in the locks," says George, fiddling with an oil-cup which is loose on the intermediate pressure rod. "We're in the locks, and we soon shall cross the bar." And as he busies himself with one thing and another he hums the tune which has swept over Swansea like some contagious disease of late: "_When there isn't a girl about, You do feel lonely! When there isn't a girl about To call your only! You're absolutely on the shelf, Don't know what to do with yourself, When there isn't a girl about!_" "Said good-bye to her, Mac?" he asks. I nod evasively. He has been home to Sunderland since we got in, and I found him asleep on the gallery floor, with his head in the ash-pit, the night of his return. He is better now, and since I know he has brought back a photograph from the north, I am in hopes of his having fallen in love. (_Clang! Slow ahead._) It is high time, I think. His constitution won't stand everything, you know. And it seems such a pity for a fine young chap to----(_Clang! Stop._) George is recording the bridge orders on the black-board on the bunker bulkhead, and I wonder----(_Clang! Slow ahead._) A pause; then--_Clang! FULL AHEAD._