Fourgues was right. When I said as much to the old Boche, he smiled without answering. We landed them at ---- and they have gone to hang themselves somewhere else. And whew! but their quarters were filthy! We had to swab and holystone for two days and it still smells. You can be sure that the owner arrived by the first train. He was beginning to ask himself what had become of the _Pamir_ and he doesn’t at all like losing money. His first interview with Fourgues was a little stormy. He didn’t quite dare reproach him for having turned about before Liverpool because that would have been a little bit too thick, but he was a little liverish all the same. “You might just as well have gone on to your destination. Two days more or less isn’t anything.” “It wouldn’t have happened,” said Fourgues, “if the propeller shaft hadn’t broken in mid-Atlantic. Muriac got us out of that splendidly, but with all respect to you, the whole engine is falling to pieces.” “Anyway,” said the other, “you have your five thousand bales of cotton.” “Five thousand! Minus fifteen hundred which are high and dry in Morocco!” Well, sir, that hurt! He completely lost his hair. It had to be explained ten times, with the little tin-pot officer’s written order and all the rest of the red tape. “Fifteen hundred bales of cotton gone! Fifteen hundred bales of cotton gone!” He kept repeating it over and over. Then Fourgues, who had had all he could stand ever since Morocco, put it to him straight and told him to his face that if he didn’t like the way things had been run, he could hand the _Pamir_ and her engine and her cotton over to some one else, and that without officers or crew it was pretty rough to be blamed. The owner was scared. He slapped the Old Man on the back and said: “We’ll square all that, my good friend. Don’t get excited. It’s all right--everything I said was from the shareholders’ point of view. I am going to see the Admiral, and since you’re O.K. with your papers the Government will look after everything and we’ll try to have the _Pamir_ chartered or some other arrangement made.” He went away as sweet as honey, but I know what that means--somebody’ll have to pay heavily for it. He must have moved heaven and earth, for the next day a post-captain came on board to ask Fourgues how much coal he could take. “Three thousand tons!” “The Government engages you to carry coal to the navy. Lighters will come alongside at noon and you are to load at once.” “And where shall I put it? I have one hold full and the other half full of cotton.”