Nevertheless, even yet there were ways and ways of keeping her afloat and punishing an insubordinate even when no official authority existed. Ike had loved the engine-room, or rather, the captain’s office, above all other parts of the vessel because it was so comfortable. Here between tedious moments of pounding iron for the smith or blowing the bellows or polishing various tools that had been sharpened, he could retire on occasion, when the boss was not about and the work not pressing (it was the very next room to his) and gaze from the captain’s door or window out on the blue waters of the Hudson where lay the yachts, and up the same stream where stood the majestic palisades. At noon or a little before he could bring his cold coffee, sealed in a tin can, to the captain’s engine and warm it. Again, the captain’s comfortable locker held his coat and hat, the captain’s wash bowl--a large wooden tub to one side of the engine into which comforting warm water could be drawn--served as an ideal means of washing up. Since the bos’n’s mate had become friendly with the captain, he too had all these privileges. But now, in view of his insubordination, all this was changed. Why should a rebellious bos’n’s mate be allowed to obtain favors of the captain? More in jest than in earnest one day it was announced that unless the bos’n’s mate would forego his angry opposition to a less early scrubbed deck---- “Well, mate,” the captain observed to the latter in the presence of the bos’n’s mate, with a lusty wink and a leer, “you know how it goes with these here insubordinates, don’t you? No more hot coffee at noon time, unless there’s more order here. No more cleanin’ up in the captain’s tub. No more settin’ in the captain’s window takin’ in the cool mornin’ breeze, as well as them yachts. What say? Eh? We know what to do with these here now insubordinates, don’t we, mate, eh?” This last with a very huge wink. “You’re right, Captain. Very right,” the mate replied. “You’re on the right track now. No more favors--unless---- Order must be maintained, you know.” “Oh, all right,” replied little Ike now, fully in earnest and thinking we were. “If I can’t, I can’t. Jist the same I don’t pick up no shavin’s after four,” and off he strolled. Think of it, final and complete mutiny, and there was nothing more really to be done. All we could do now was to watch him as he idled by himself at odd free moments down by the waterside in an odd corner of the point, a lonely figure, his trousers and coat too large, his hands and feet too big, his yellow teeth protruding. No one of the other workingmen ever seemed to be very enthusiastic over Ike, he was so small, so queer; no one, really, but the captain and the mate, and now they had deserted him. It was tough.