pitiable to see the man's disregard for anything but that
infernal machinery. He never leaves it; it's meat and drink to him. If
we make money, he doesn't want it; if we're going for a spell ashore,
he won't come, but stays here poking about the wheels. He was the first
man in all Europe to see that gas would finally supplant steam for
maritime vessels; and Black gave him _carte blanche_ to carry out his
ideas on this ship. You may be surprised to hear it, but fore and aft
in those great cigar-shaped ends of ours we have nothing but gas--three
million feet, at a pressure of between two and three atmospheres. Why,
man, it's the idea of the century; for every four pounds of coal burnt
by an Atlantic liner, we don't burn a pound. We can steam for ten days
without lighting a fire; and all the coal we need to go round the world
will go in our bunkers. Save for that, and Karl Remey's genius, there
wouldn't be a man jack of us with a neck to call his own to-day. Now,
we snap our fingers at the best of them; there isn't a cruiser that can
live with the thirty knots we can show; and there isn't a
line-of-battle ship swimming that could get the better of us while our
engines are moving. It's a big claim you think, but wait until you see
us in action, then you'll know how much we owe to the little man in
rags, but who has one of the clearest brains that ever was put into
human being."

I was silent under this revelation, for it came to me that, with all
the terrors of the great ship, there was also a scientific side, which
marked the presence of a mighty intellect. The doctor saw the
impression he had made upon me, and he said--

"To-morrow we will show you more; you shall meet the ragged man----"

"Which is mysel'," said the Scotsman, who had joined us silently,
"mysel' that has'na a dud to my back. D'ye ken that when there's ony
distribution o' the gudes I get a' the female apparel; which is no
justice ava for a meenister, let alone a sea-faring man."

"Never mind, Dick," said the doctor laughing, as I did; "we'll beg a
skirt for you the first time we say how-d'ye-do to a passenger
vessel----"

"Hands, heave anchor!" roared Black at that moment; and our
conversation stopped suddenly at the cry. Then slowly, as the bell rang
out, the great engines began their work, and we swept out to the open
sea. Night had fallen, but the aurora still gave her changing light;
and as we felt the first oscillations of the rolling breakers,