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But when Caleb had explained the main errand upon which they had come, after a long, keen scrutiny of the boy's face, the burly river-man led the way, without a word, to a wheezing old two-wheeler in the piling yard. "So you'll be wantin' to take a spin in one av me ingines, is it?" he asked then. And, after a moment: "An' do you think you'll be able to hang on, whin she gets to r-rollin'?"
"But ships a'n't like they oncst was, ladies," he added, "before men put these here heavy iron ingines to work in 'em it's like cropping a bird's wing to make a river-boat of a ship, and a dead, dead shame to shorten sails till it looks like a young gal dressed in breeches or any other onnatural thing for a sailing-ship and a full-flowing petticoat always rise up in a true man's mind together God bless them both, I say."
They do say that a man is knowd by the company he keeps, and I'm sure it's no wonder that baby should screech an' smash as he do, considerin' the example set 'im day an' night by them ingines." Here another yell from baby gave, as it were, assent to these opinions.
And Terence Reardon laughed the short, mirthless chuckle of the man who knows. "Then," Matt continued, "the money should be spent " "In retubing her condensers," declared the engineer emphatically. "Do that an' do a good job on her, an' she'll have shteam enough for thim fine big ingines av hers on thirty-two ton a day, an' less. An' have a care would ye buy her until she ships a new crank shaft.
To my mind all the ingines seem to go bangin' an' rushin' an' yellin' about pretty much in the same furious way; but I've often 'eard my 'usband explain it all, an' he knows all about it Miss, just as if it wor A, B, C."
"Are you the captain of this vessel," demanded the leader of the boarders, as he approached the old man. "Yes sir." "What is your cargo?" "Machinery for ingines." "Nothing else?" asked the pirate with a searching look.
"They're comin'," he said, as he returned after his third trip. "The bells are ringin', an' they're a swarmin' up the hill, two ingines, an' a ruck o' boys an' men. Melindy, she's keepin' the laundry door locked, an' a lettin' on me in." Mrs. Marchbanks came hurrying back before the crowd. Some common, ecstatic little boys, rushing foremost to the fire, hustled her on her own lawn.
"Amos," said Martin to the ex-engineer, "you try an' 'member all you forgot 'bout ingines in case anything happens to de crew o' dat steamer; an', Elisha, you want to keep good track o' where we go, so's you kin find you' way back." "I'll get the chronometer on deck now. I can take sights alone." They took the cable to the windlass-barrel and began to heave.
Bedney, go around and open the library door leading into this room, and loop back the curtain for a moment." "No, sir, Mars Lennox. Forty railroad ingines couldn't pull me in there alive. I wouldn't dar tamper with ole Marster's ghost; not for all the money in the bank. Go yourself; I doesn't budge on no sech bizness as prying and spying amongst the sperrits. It would fling me into a fit."
We thin sailed west, a quarter south by compass, close- hauled on the starboard track, for two hours longer after you altered course ag'in an' bore up to the west'ard, keeping on till the ingines bhroke down, bad cess to 'em!" "When was that?" asked the skipper slowly. "I was so worried and flurried at the moment that I forgot to take the time."
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