oot, oot,' said he. 'Ye might ha' crammed her a little--enough to
show ye were drivin' her--an' brought her in twa days behind. What's
easier than to say ye slowed for bearin's, eh? All my men do it, and--I
believe 'em.'

"'McRimmon,' says I, 'what's her virginity to a lassie?'

"He puckered his dry face an' twisted in his chair. 'The warld an' a','
says he. 'My God, the vara warld an' a' (But what ha' you or me to do
wi' virginity, this late along?)'

"'This,' I said. 'There's just one thing that each one of us in his
trade or profession will not do for ony consideration whatever. If I run
to time I run to time barrio' always the risks o' the high seas. Less
than that, under God, I have not done. More than that, by God, I will
not do! There's no trick o' the trade I'm not acquaint wi'--'

"'So I've heard,' says McRimmon, dry as a biscuit.

"'But yon matter o' fair rennin' s just my Shekinah, ye'll understand. I
daurna tamper wi' that. Nursing weak engines is fair craftsmanship;
but what the Board ask is cheatin', wi' the risk o' manslaughter
addeetional.' Ye'll note I know my business.

"There was some more talk, an' next week I went aboard the Kite,
twenty-five hunder ton, simple compound, a Black Bird tramp. The deeper
she rode, the better she'd steam. I've snapped as much as eleven out of
her, but eight point three was her fair normal. Good food forward an'
better aft, all indents passed wi'out marginal remarks, the best coal,
new donkeys, and good crews. There was nothin' the old man would not do,
except paint. That was his deeficulty. Ye could no more draw paint than
his last teeth from him. He'd come down to dock, an' his boats a scandal
all along the watter, an' he'd whine an' cry an' say they looked all he
could desire. Every owner has his non plus ultra, I've obsairved. Paint
was McRimmon's. But you could get round his engines without riskin'
your life, an', for all his blindness, I've seen him reject five
flawed intermediates, one after the other, on a nod from me; an' his
cattle-fittin's were guaranteed for North Atlantic winter weather. Ye
ken what that means? McRimmon an' the Black Bird Line, God bless him!

"Oh, I forgot to say she would lie down an' fill her forward deck green,
an' snore away into a twenty-knot gale forty-five to the minute, three
an' a half knots an hour, the engines runnin' sweet an' true as a bairn
breathin' in its sleep. Bell was skipper; an' forbye there's no love
lost betwee