"BREAD UPON THE WATERS"
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 sailin's, and the Breslau timed for sixteen days between port an' port! Sixteen days, man! She 's a good boat, but eighteen is her summer time, mark you. Sixteen was sheer flytin', kitin' nonsense, an' so I told young Bannister.
"'We 've got to make it,' he said. 'Ye should not ha' sent in a three hunder pound indent.'
"'Do they look for their boats to be run on air?' I said. 'The Board 's daft.'
"'E'en tell 'em so,' he says. 'I 'm a married man, an' my fourth 's on the ways now, she says.'"
"A boy—wi' red hair," Janet put in. Her own hair is the splendid red-gold that goes with a creamy complexion.
"My word, I was an angry man that day! Forbye I was fond o' the old Breslau, I looked for a little consideration from the Board after twenty years' service. There was Board-meetin' on Wednesday, an' I slept overnight in the engine-room, takin' figures to support
my case. Well, I put it fair and square before them all. ’Gentlemen,' I said, 'I 've run the Breslau eight seasons, an' I believe there 's no fault to find wi' my wark.
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