“It’s irritatin’, Janet, it’s just irritatin’. I ha’ been justified from first to last, as the world knows, but—but I canna forgie ’em. Ay, wisdom is justified o’ her children; an’ any other man than me wad ha’ made the indent eight hunder. Hay was our skipper—ye’ll have met him. They shifted him to the _Torgau_, an’ bade me wait for the _Breslau_ under young Bannister. Ye’ll obsairve there’d been a new election on the Board. I heard the shares were sellin’ hither an’ yon, an’ the major part of the Board was new to me. The old Board would ne’er ha’ done it. They trusted me. But the new Board were all for reorganisation. Young Steiner—Steiner’s son—the Jew, was at the bottom of it, an’ they did not think it worth their while to send me word. The first I knew—an’ I was Chief Engineer—was the notice of the line’s winter sailin’s, and the _Breslau_ timed for sixteen days between port an’ port! Sixteen days, man! She’s a good boat, but eighteen is her summer time, mark you. Sixteen was sheer flytin’, kitin’ nonsense, an’ so I told young Bannister. “We’ve got to make it,’ he said. ’Ye should not ha’ sent in a three hunder pound indent.’ “Do they look for their boats to be run on air?’ I said. ‘The Board’s daft.’ “‘E’en tell ’em so,’ he says. ‘I’m a married man, an’ my fourth’s on the ways now, she says.’” “A boy—wi’ red hair,” Janet put in. Her own hair is the splendid red-gold that goes with a creamy complexion. “My word, I was an angry man that day! Forbye I was fond o’ the old _Breslau_, I looked for a little consideration from the Board after twenty years’ service. There was Board-meetin’ on Wednesday, an’ I slept overnight in the engine-room, takin’ figures to support my case. Well, I put it fair and square before them all. ‘Gentlemen,’ I said, ‘I’ve run the _Breslau_ eight seasons, an’ I believe there’s no fault to find wi’ my wark. But if ye haud to this’—I waggled the advertisement at ’em—‘this that _I_’ve never heard of it till I read it at breakfast, I do assure you on my professional reputation, she can never do it. That is to say, she can for a while, but at a risk no thinkin’ man would run.’ “‘What the deil d’ ye suppose we pass your indents for?’ says old Holdock. ‘Man, we’re spendin’ money like watter.’ “‘I’ll leave it in the Board’s hands,’ I said, ‘if two hunder an’ eighty-seven pound is anything beyond right and reason for eight months.’ I might ha’ saved my breath, for the Board was new since the last election, an’ there they sat, the damned deevidend-huntin’ ship-chandlers, deaf as the adders o’ Scripture. “‘We must keep faith wi’ the public,’ said young Steiner. “‘Keep faith wi’ the _Breslau_, then,’ I said. ‘She’s served you well, an’ your father before you. She’ll need her bottom restiffenin’, an’ new bed-plates, an’ turnin’ out the forward boilers, an’ re-turnin’ all three cylinders, an’ refacin’ all guides, to begin with. It’s a three months’ job.’