s back numbers. Even
among captains he sensed a reluctance to discuss a professional problem.
The third engineer, a skilled mechanic with a tongue like a rasp, and
the second, a patient old dobbin who ought to have been promoted long
ago, were examples of an older school, but the good captain was hardly
in a position to appraise them professionally.

It was different with Mr. Spokesly. If anything happened to Captain
Meredith himself, a sudden weight of responsibility would roll upon Mr.
Spokesly that would, in the captain's opinion, crush him. For it must be
confessed that licenses, diplomas, certificates, or whatever you call
your engraved warrants to ply your trade, are no guarantee of character
and nerve. Nor does efficiency in a subordinate capacity imply success
in command. Just as some men are stormy and intractable nuisances until
they reach the top, when they immediately assume a mysterious and
impregnable composure, so others deliberately avoid rising above a
comfortable mediocrity, conscious of their own limitations and well
satisfied that some other human soul should endure the pangs of the
supreme decision. Others there are, and Captain Meredith believed Mr.
Spokesly was one of them, who lack knowledge of themselves, and who have
not sufficient intelligence either to carry the burden or to refuse it.

This, of course, was not Mr. Spokesly's opinion as time went on. On the
contrary, he had come to the conclusion that it was no use being a smart
officer "if the captain wouldn't back a man up." He told Archy Bates
that "the Old Man was doing all he knew to do him dirty." And Archy
riposted at once with evidence that he himself was the victim of a foul
conspiracy between the Captain and the crew over the grub. Mr. Spokesly
would go out on deck from these pow-wows feeling very happy, for Archy
never failed to open a bottle. Mr. Spokesly would sway a little as he
walked forward to see how the work was going on in the fore-hold. The
_Tanganyika_, having discharged most of her cargo, was now reloading a
great deal of it in obedience to orders from certain invisible but
omnipotent beings higher up. He would sway a little, and hold on to the
hatch coaming, looking down upon the toilers below with an air of
profound abstraction. Then he would move gently until he could raise his
eyes and sweep a casual glance in the direction of the bridge. Sometimes
he would see the Old Man's head as he strode to and fro. On one occa