all an anachronism or an anomaly, I
forget which. Ye'll never get men like young Tolleshunt, men who know
their work from A to Z, to treat ye seriously unless ye take hold and
study a ship for what she is, a mass o' machinery. Ye'll have to get
shut o' the notion that as soon as ye become officers, ye must lose the
use o' your hands. Now there's just as much engineerin' about that
binnacle as there is in a kettle or a rabbit hutch. Put one o' your
young apprentices to it, and if he can't, make him learn. I've been with
old-time skippers who could do anything, from wire-splicing to welding
an anchor shackle. They learned in the yard before they went to sea.
Your young fellers can do nothing except slather a hose round the decks
and ask for higher wages. Now don't be sore because I'm telling ye the
truth. We're busy and we're tired. We've all sorts o' trouble you can't
understand, vital matters that mean speed and safety. Suppose, after a
spell on the bridge in fog, ye were to come down to yer room and find me
there with some ash-bags to sew up, eh? Imagine it! Just imagine it!"

He sat there, looking sideways at Mr. Spokesly, his pipe between his
enormous thumb and knuckle, asking Mr. Spokesly to imagine this fearsome
thing. But Mr. Spokesly's imagination was for the time being out of
commission. He was scarcely conscious of the request, so intensely
preoccupied was he with the ghastly cleavage between his own estimate of
his position and the chief's. Back of all these frank insults to his
dignity, Mr. Spokesly scented the sinister prejudice of his commander.
As he strode, in severe mental disarray, back to his room, he discovered
a conviction that the chief "had been pumpin' the Old Man." Not that he
needed any pumping, of course. It would be only too like him to blab to
an engineer about his own officers. Well, there it was! Mr. Spokesly
pitched the hapless binnacle on the settee and turned to the wash-stand.
Perhaps it was due to the course of the London School of Mnemonics, the
course in tracing the association of ideas, that when his eye fell on
the tumblers in the rack he should think of that abominable trick of the
Old Man sneaking in and smelling the glass to see if he, Mr. Spokesly,
had been drinking. Couldn't trust him that far! Do what he would he
could give no satisfaction. He would ask to be paid off to-morrow as
soon as they dropped anchor in Saloniki harbour. That would be the best
way. Just pull out of it.