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There was a sou'wester brewin' when we made the mouth o' the Mersey, a bitter cold morn wi' a grey-green sea and a grey-green sky Liverpool weather, as they say; an' there we lay choppin', an' the crew swore. Ye canna keep secrets aboard ship. They thought McRimmon was mad, too.
I'm McRimmon o' McNaughten & McRimmon! "'Dod, he said betwix' his teeth, sittin' back in the boat, 'I've waited fourteen year to break that Jewfirm, an' God be thankit I'll do it now.
"Syne the Kite came back, an' McRimmon paid off me an' Bell personally, an' the rest of the crew pro rata, I believe it's ca'ed. My share oor share, I should say was just twenty-five thousand pound sterlin'." At this point Janet jumped up and kissed him.
'I was wrong, McRimmon; but when a man's shown the door for doin' his plain duty he's not always ceevil. "'So I hear, says McRimmon. 'Ha' ye ony objection to a tramp freighter? It's only fifteen a month, but they say the Blind Deevil feeds a man better than others. She's my Kite. Come ben. Ye can thank Dandie, here. I'm no used to thanks.
'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.
"'It would grieve them sore, I said. "'But the crew would not hear o' stayin' and workin' her back under canvas. They're gaun up an' down sayin' they'd ha' starved first. "'They'd ha' starved if they'd stayed, said I. "'I tak' it, fra Calder's account, there was a mutiny a'most. "'Ye know more than I, McRimmon' I said.
The auld deil had just come down overnight, puttin' two an' two together from what Calder had told him when the liner landed the Grotkau's men. He had preceesely hit oor time. I'd hailed Bell for something to eat, an' he sent it o'er in the same boat wi' McRimmon, when the auld man came to me. He grinned an' slapped his legs and worked his eyebrows the while I ate.
"The bill went to McRimmon, an' he said no more to me till the week-end, when I was at him for more paint, for we'd heard the Kite was chartered Liverpool-side. 'Bide whaur ye're put, said the Blind Deevil. 'Man, do ye wash in champagne? The Kite's no leavin' here till I gie the order, an' how am I to waste paint onher, wi' the Lammergeyer docked for who knows how long an' a'?
"The Kite was in the Baltic while the auld man was warkin' his warks, but I know the assessors valued the Grotkau, all told, at over three hunder and sixty thousand her manifest was a treat o' richness an' McRimmon got a third for salvin' an abandoned ship.
"'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. "'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.
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