"I know nothing since last
September. Was it left you?"

They laughed aloud together. "It was left," said McPhee, choking. "Ou,
ay, it was left. That's vara good. Of course it was left. Janet, d' ye
note that? It was left. Now if you'd put that in your pamphlet it would
have been vara jocose. It was left." He slapped his thigh and roared
till the wine quivered in the decanter.

The Scotch are a great people, but they are apt to hang over a joke too
long, particularly when no one can see the point but themselves.

"When I rewrite my pamphlet I'll put it in, McPhee. Only I must know
something more first."

McPhee thought for the length of half a cigar, while Janet caught my
eye and led it round the room to one new thing after another--the new
vine-pattern carpet, the new chiming rustic clock between the models
of the Colombo outrigger-boats, the new inlaid sideboard with a purple
cut-glass flower-stand, the fender of gilt and brass, and last, the new
black-and-gold piano.

"In October o' last year the Board sacked me," began McPhee. "In October
o' last year the Breslau came in for winter overhaul. She'd been runnin'
eight months--two hunder an' forty days--an' I was three days makin' up
my indents, when she went to dry-dock. All told, mark you, it was this
side o' three hunder pound--to be preceese, two hunder an' eighty-six
pound four shillings. There's not another man could ha' nursed the
Breslau for eight months to that tune. Never again--never again! They
may send their boats to the bottom, for aught I care."

"There's no need," said Janet, softly. "We're done wi' Holdock, Steiner
& Chase."

"It's irritatin', Janet, it's just irritatin'. I ha' been justified
from first to last, as the world knows, but--but I canna forgie 'em. Ay,
wisdom is justified o' her children; an' any other man than me wad ha'
made the indent eight hunder. Hay was our skipper--ye'll have met him.
They shifted him to the Torgau, an' bade me wait for the Breslau under
young Bannister. Ye'll obsairve there'd been a new election on the
Board. I heard the shares were sellin' hither an' yon, an' the major
part of the Board was new to me. The old Board would ne'er ha' done it.
They trusted me. But the new Board were all for reorganisation. Young
Steiner--Steiner's son--the Jew, was at the bottom of it, an' they did
not think it worth their while to send me word. The first I knew--an'
I was Chief Engineer--was the notice of the line's winter sai