Well, well, Captain, I tell you what ..." began Mr. Dainopoulos.

"And another thing," continued Captain Rannie, without looking up, "the
man's no good in a pinch. Several times on the voyage I've had literally
to tell him his work. No sense of his position. Sits on the fore hatch
and has long conversations with the crew. I make no charges, mind, none
whatever, but I am as certain that man carries my conversation forward
as I am of my own existence. When eight bells ring at my orders, he is
frequently nowhere to be seen, and if I send the man at the wheel to
find him and bring him up, as I have had to do more than once, he keeps
the man with him in his room playing cards, leaving me at the wheel.
That's gratitude. That's the sort of thing I have to put up with from
this man. Do you suppose for a moment that I can allow it to go on for
ever?"

"Well, Captain," said Mr. Dainopoulos again, "I can see we shall have
to ..."

"In Port Said," cut in Captain Rannie, "I scarcely saw the man.
Positively I might have had no chief officer! But for me the ship would
have been looted over and over again. More than once, when I was going
ashore on ship's business, I found he had sent the boat away on some
perfectly trivial errand of his own, to buy him some cigarettes or to
fetch his laundry. And when I made an absolutely justifiable protest and
issued explicit orders that the boat was not to leave the ship's side
except at the express orders of the commander, what happens? Nothing but
insults and foul innuendoes. This sort of treatment might appeal to some
ship masters. You can't tell, there's no accounting for tastes.
Personally, I simply will not have it. I have been patient long enough.
I make every allowance for defective education and ignorance of the
ordinary decencies of life. I hope I realize everybody cannot be the
same. But this is going too far."

"Yes, yes," said Mr. Dainopoulos hurriedly. "I quite agree with you,
Captain. We'll make a change right away. Now if you'll ..."

"Putting aside all personal feeling," continued Captain Rannie, and
indeed he had gone right on while his employer was speaking, "putting
all that to one side, I feel it my duty as master of the vessel. The man
is not fit to be a ship's officer."

"I'll get you a seat, Mister," said Dainopoulos to Mr. Spokesly, and he
hurried out and over to a small cafe, returning with a chair.

"No satisfaction in going on like this, as any one can see not bli