"In the name of hades, because we've got to get a herd of railroad locomotives to France, and sending them over in pieces won't do. They want 'em ready to run. So the powers that be have ordered me to provide two hatchways big enough to lower whole locomotives through, and pigeonholes in the hold big enough to carry them. As far as the _Mamise_ is concerned, that means we've just about got to rub it out and do it over again. It's a case of back to the mold-loft for _Mamise_." "And about how much more delay will this mean?" "Oh, about ninety days or thereabouts. If we're lucky we'll launch her by spring." This was almost worse than the death of the _Clara_. That tragedy had been noble; it dealt a noble blow and woke the heart to a noble grief and courage. But deferment made the heart sick, and the brain and almost the stomach. Davidge liked the disappointment no better than Mamise did, but he was used to it. "And now aren't you glad you're not a ship-builder? How would you feel if you had got your wish to work in the yard and had turned your little velvet hands into a pair of nutmeg-graters by driving about ten thousand rivets into those plates, only to have to cut 'em all out again and drive 'em into an entirely new set of plates, knowing that maybe they'd have to come out another time and go back? How'd you like that?" Mamise lifted her shoulders and let them fall. Davidge went on: "That's a business man's life, my dear--eternally making things that won't sell, putting his soul and his capital and his preparation into a pile of stock that nobody will take off his hands. But he has to go right on, borrowing money and pledging the past for the future and never knowing whether his dreams will turn out to be dollars or--junk!" Mamise realized for the first time the pathos, the higher drama of the manufacturer's world, that world which poets and some other literary artists do not describe because they are too ignorant, too petty, too bookish. They sneer at the noble word _commercial_ as if it were a reproach! Mamise, however, looked on Davidge in his swivel-chair as a kind of despondent demigod, a Titan weary of the eternal strife. She tried to rise beyond a poetical height to the clouds of the practical. "What will you do with all the workmen who are on that job?" Davidge grinned. "They're announcing their monthly strike for higher wages--threatening to lay off the force. It'd serve 'em right to take 'em at their word for a while. But you simply can't fight a labor union according to Queensbery rules, so I'll give 'em the raise and put 'em on another ship." "And the _Mamise_ will be idle and neglected for three months." "Just about." "The Germans couldn't have done much worse by her, could they?" "Not much." "I think I'll call it a day and go home," said Mamise. "Better call it a quarter and go to New York or Palm Beach or somewhere where there's a little gaiety." "Are you sick of seeing me round?"