Now, at last---- Below, a drop of grease in the Chief's eye set him
wiping and cursing; over his head hammered, banged and lunged his
great babies; in the stokehole a gaunt and grimy creature, yclept
the Junior Second, stewed in his own sweat and yelled for steam.
The Red Un opened the drawed quickly and thrust in a hand. At first
he thought it was empty, working as he did by touch, his eye on the
door. Then he found a disappointing something--the lid of a
cigar-box! Under that was a photograph. Here was luck! Had the Red
Un known it, he had found the only two secrets in his Chief's open
life. But the picture was disappointing--a snapshot of a young
woman, rather slim, with the face obscured by a tennis racket,
obviously thrust into the picture at the psychological moment. Poor
spoil this--a cigar-box lid and a girl without a face! However,
marred as it was, it clearly meant something to the Chief. For on
its reverse side was another stanza from McAndrew's hymn:
_Ye know how hard an idol dies,
An' what that meant to me--
E'en tak' it for a sacrifice
Acceptable to Thee._
The Red Un thrust it back into the drawer, with the lid. If she was
dead what did it matter? He was a literal youth--so far, his own
words had proved sufficient for his thoughts; it is after thirty
that a man finds his emotions bigger than his power of expressing
them, and turns to those that have the gift. The Chief was over
thirty.
It was as he shut the drawer that he realised he was not alone. The
alley door was open and in it stood the Senior Second. The Red Un
eyed him unpleasantly.
"Sneaking!" said the Second.
"None of your blamed business!" replied the Red Un.
The Second, who was really an agreeable person, with a sense of
humour, smiled. He rather liked the Red Un.
"Do you know, William," he observed--William was the Red Un's
name--"I'd be willing to offer two shillings for an itemised
account of what's in that drawer?"
"Fill it with shillings," boasted the Red Un, "and I'll not tell
you."
"Three?" said the Second cheerfully.
"No."
"Four?"
"Why don't you look yourself?"
"Just between gentlemen, that isn't done, young man. But if you
volunteered the information, and I saw fit to make you a present of,
say, a pipe, with a box of tobacco----"
"What do you want to know for?"
"I guess you know."
The Red Un knew quite well. The Chief and the two Seconds were still
playing their game, and the Chief was still winning; but even the
Red Un did not know how the Chief won--and as for the two Seconds
and the Third and the Fourth, they were quite stumped.
This was the game: In bad weather, when the ports are closed and
first-class passengers are yapping for air, it is the province of
the engine room to see that they get it. An auxiliary engine pumps
cubic feet of atmosphere into every cabin through a series of
airtrunks.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account