Life in the pierhouse, between fires, was as dull as imprisonment. There were brasses to be polished, hose to be dried, and a watch to be kept on the “jigger”--the little bell that rang in the alarms; but when the chores for the day had been done, all the rest was idleness. As long as there were strangers in the company, there was some show of sociability in the sitting-room, but when the entire crew had returned to duty, whether they worked or idled, it was in a constrained silence, with side-mouthed whispers and a suspicious aloofness between group and group. There was little said about the fire on the _Sachsen_ even within the groups. Firemen have no more taste for discussing their day’s work with one another than any other laborers have; and in this case, there was an uneasy feeling that the man who said least, now, would have least to answer for if there were to be an official investigation of the disaster. As for Keighley, he did not ask himself--or anybody else--what was going on in the minds of either faction. He did not ask, from either, anything but obedience; and he got that, now, without perceptible difficulty. They had evidently acquired some sort of unholy respect for him; and if they were plotting against him, they were doing it hypocritically. He was satisfied, if it had not been for the difficulty of making out the daily reports. It was as if to make that difficulty greater that the engineer of the _Hudson_ came to him to complain of the trouble it was to keep the boat’s low-pressure cylinder warm and ready to start. “I can’t see the sense o’ puttin’ triple-expansion engines into a fire-boat, any way,” he reported. “That third cylinder’s just a drag on the other two. She goes cold here, layin’ in the dock, an’ we’re half way to a fire before she gets hot enough to handle the steam.” Keighley replied, “Well, send in yer kick to headquarters”--and avoided Dady’s eye as he said it; for it was the captain’s duty to make all such reports. The engineer looked at him, looked at the floor, and then rubbed his nose with the back of an oily hand. “I guess _you_ better do it, cap’n,” he said meekly. “I ain’t much of an ink-slinger.” And Keighley’s greater sense of dignity compelled him to answer, with an affected indifference, “All right. All right.”