“You see, my boy,” said Fourgues, “the cruisers took the coal intended for the destroyers and the destroyers the coal for the cruisers. Such is life!” The destroyers gone, we filled our forward ballast-tanks, for you can imagine how our twenty-five hundred bales of cotton weighed us down by the stern, and got under steam for Liverpool. It was a regular joy-ride. Fourgues had no fear of running short of coal with the hundred tons we were carrying gratis, and there were three of us for the watch, including the Johnny of the Paris boats, who, by the way, has a little fund of stories that leave Fourgues’ a long way behind. At Liverpool the pilot delivered a telegram from the owner, who said that according to agreement with the consignee, we must hand our cotton over to the _Karl Kristian_, a big Norwegian cargo-boat, moored near Birkenhead. When we were able to make fast to her, can you guess what the captain said to Fourgues? Guess again, my son! That the _Karl Kristian_ was going to carry the twenty-five hundred bales with four thousand more to Copenhagen! You bet that stuff’s going to stay in Denmark! This was the first time Fourgues lost his hair since K----, and he said that if he had known he would have pitched it all overboard in Morocco and carried furniture for a hundred thousand Boches, rather than hand over to them material with which to furnish shells for a whole Army Corps. You must have read the articles of the Hague Conference, old man, on your battleship, so if you can tell why it is forbidden to sell coal to the Boches and why cotton is not contraband of war, you will do both Fourgues and me a favour. If the Germans were in our place on the sea and we in theirs, I think an embargo on cotton would not have been so long delayed. The _Pamir_ soon hooked it from Birkenhead. During the day the _Karl Kristian_ scraped out our twenty-five hundred bales, and Fourgues profited by the occasion to have the builder’s diver--the _Pamir_ was built there--take a squint at our screw, which did not seem to be turning true. It was then we learned that a good chunk of metal from the propeller was lying in the Atlantic, as well as three nuts broken off from the nave. Fourgues would have liked to have it repaired then and there, but the people at the yard told him that they were overrun because the Admiralty was rushing construction, and that if the _Pamir_ could go as far as Cardiff, we should find another screw at their branch establishment and some one to mount it. As it is only a short trip we left that evening in ballast, and this morning they had her down by the bows and installed a raft under the propeller, just at water-level. To-morrow they will be through. We shall load up coal and get off again.