ought half shares in a cheap 'un and hoisted a flag of our
own.
Patching and coaling on credit, and living the Lord knew how,
We started the Red Ox freighters--we've eight-and-thirty now.
And those were the days of clippers, and the freights were
clipper-freights,
And we knew we were making our fortune, but she died in Macassar
Straits--
By the Little Paternosters, as you come to the Union Bank--
And we dropped her in fourteen fathom; I pricked it off where she sank.
Owners we were, full owners, and the boat was christened for her,
And she died out there in childbed. My heart, how young we were!
So I went on a spree round Java and well-nigh ran her ashore,
But your mother came and warned me and I wouldn't liquor no more.
Strict I stuck to my business, afraid to stop or I'd think,
Saving the money (she warned me), and letting the other men drink.
And I met McCullough in London (I'd saved five 'undred then),
And 'tween us we started the Foundry--three forges and twenty men:
Cheap repairs for the cheap 'uns. It paid, and the business grew,
For I bought me a steam-lathe patent, and that was a gold mine too.
"Cheaper to build 'em than buy 'em," _I_ said, but McCullough he shied,
And we wasted a year in talking before we moved to the Clyde.
And the Lines were all beginning, and we all of us started fair,
Building our engines like houses and staying the boilers square.
But McCullough 'e wanted cabins with marble and maple and all,
And Brussels and Utrecht velvet, and baths and a Social Hall,
And pipes for closets all over, and cutting the frames too light.
But McCullough he died in the Sixties, and---- Well, I'm dying
to-night....
I knew--_I_ knew what was coming, when we bid on the _Byfleet's_ keel.
They piddled and piffled with iron: I'd given my orders for steel.
Steel and the first expansions. It paid, I tell you, it paid,
When we came with our nine-knot freighters and collared the long-run
trade.
And they asked me how I did it, and I gave 'em the Scripture text,
"You keep your light so shining a little in front o' the next!"
They copied all they could follow, but they couldn't copy my mind,
And I left 'em sweating and stealing a year and a half behind.
Then came the armour-contracts, but that was McCullough's side;
He