al on the ladder, my nice
mackintosh barred with it, and my boots slipping on the iron plates. No
one took any notice of me. Men went to and fro in oilskins and shouted,
but they didn't seem to see me. Just for a moment I thought of bolting!
Humph!

"Finally I spoke to one of the men, saying I had a letter for the chief
engineer. He took me round into a dark alleyway under the bridge-deck
aft and shouted down: 'Here comes the Second,' he says. 'He'll fix ye.'

"Well, he came up, that Second did, not very pleased at being disturbed.
'What is it?' he says. He was grease from head to foot, as though some
one had been rolling him in a sewer.

"'I'm the Fourth Engineer,' I said. 'Oh, are ye,' says he, 'I thought ye
were comin' this mornin'. Better get a boiler-suit on and give a hand.
We're goin' to sea to-morrow noon.'

"He took me along the alleyway and unlocked a door. 'There,' says he,
'there's your room. Ye share wi' the Third.' It was a smelly little
hole, and so dark I could scarcely make out the bunks.

"'I haven't a boiler-suit with me,' I said, and he looked at me. He was
a younger man than I was, and I felt it would be strange to have to take
orders from him. 'Oh,' he says, 'you're about my size, I'll lend you
one.' I couldn't help thinking as he went into his berth next to ours,
that if he was the Second and I was the Fourth, what on earth would _I_
be like when we got to sea?

"And then he took me down below.

"That was my introduction to my new career. No handshakes, no good
night's rest--nothing. I got into the Second's boiler-suit and followed
him down. We had to work all night. The Third was down there all the
time under the boilers. He was an old chap; must have been sixty, with a
moustache that was dirty brown at the tips and grey at the roots, and a
crease down each of his cheeks that was always twitching while he
chewed. He was lying on his side in a puddle of water, a slush lamp
close to his head, working a ratchet-drill into the shell of the boiler.
I had to crawl in alongside of him and help him. _Me!_ And I'd been
writing 'fitters' instructions' in the office for three years. It was a
come-down.

"And yet, something inside of me responded to the call. Say it was
romance if you like, say it was sentiment, say it was just foolishness.
Something inside of me answered to the call. We worked all that night,
patching that bad plate on the boiler. The other boilers were under
steam, so you can bel