s withdrawn the Lammergeyer.'

"'Maybe he has reasons,' says I.

"'Reasons! He's daft!'

"'He'll no be daft till he begins to paint,' I said.

"'That's just what he's done--and South American freights higher than
we'll live to see them again. He's laid her up to paint her--to paint
her--to paint her!' says the little clerk, dancin' like a hen on a hot
plate. 'Five thousand ton o' potential freight rottin' in drydock, man;
an' he dolin' the paint out in quarter-pound tins, for it cuts him
to the heart, mad though he is. An' the Grotkau--the Grotkau of all
conceivable bottoms--soaking up every pound that should be ours at
Liverpool!'

"I was staggered wi' this folly--considerin' the dinner at Radley's in
connection wi' the same.

"Ye may well stare, McPhee,' says the head-clerk. 'There's engines, an'
rollin' stock, an' iron bridgesd' ye know what freights are noo? an'
pianos, an' millinery, an' fancy Brazil cargo o' every species
pourin' into the Grotkau--the Grotkau o' the Jerusalem firm--and the
Lammergeyer's bein' painted!'

"Losh, I thought he'd drop dead wi' the fits.

"I could say no more than 'Obey orders, if ye break owners,' but on the
Kite we believed McRimmon was mad; an' McIntyre of the Lammergeyer was
for lockin' him up by some patent legal process he'd found in a book o'
maritime law. An' a' that week South American freights rose an' rose. It
was sinfu'!

"Syne Bell got orders to tak' the Kite round to Liverpool in
water-ballast, and McRimmon came to bid's good-bye, yammerin' an'
whinin' o'er the acres o' paint he'd lavished on the Lammergeyer.

"'I look to you to retrieve it,' says he. 'I look to you to reimburse
me! 'Fore God, why are ye not cast off? Are ye dawdlin' in dock for a
purpose?'

"'What odds, McRimmon?' says Bell. 'We'll be a day behind the fair at
Liverpool. The Grotkau's got all the freight that might ha' been ours
an' the Lammergeyer's.' McRimmon laughed an' chuckled--the pairfect
eemage o' senile dementia. Ye ken his eyebrows wark up an' down like a
gorilla's.

"'Ye're under sealed orders,' said he, tee-heein' an' scratchin'
himself. 'Yon's they'--to be opened seriatim.

"Says Bell, shufflin' the envelopes when the auld man had gone ashore:
'We're to creep round a' the south coast, standin' in for orders his
weather, too. There's no question o' his lunacy now.'

"Well, we buttocked the auld Kite along--vara bad weather we
made--standin' in all alongside for telegraphic or