Jukes, straddling his long legs like a pair of compasses, put on an air of superiority.  “We’re going to catch it this time,” he said.  “The barometer is tumbling down like anything, Harry.  And you trying to kick up that silly row. . . .”

The word “barometer” seemed to revive the second engineer’s mad animosity.  Collecting afresh all his energies, he directed Jukes in a low and brutal tone to shove the unmentionable instrument down his gory throat.  Who cared for his crimson barometer?  It was the steam—­the steam—­that was going down; and what between the firemen going faint and the chief going silly, it was worse than a dog’s life for him; he didn’t care a tinker’s curse how soon the whole show was blown out of the water.  He seemed on the point of having a cry, but after regaining his breath he muttered darkly, “I’ll faint them,” and dashed off.  He stopped upon the fiddle long enough to shake his fist at the unnatural daylight, and dropped into the dark hole with a whoop.

When Jukes turned, his eyes fell upon the rounded back and the big red ears of Captain MacWhirr, who had come across.  He did not look at his chief officer, but said at once, “That’s a very violent man, that second engineer.”

“Jolly good second, anyhow,” grunted Jukes.  “They can’t keep up steam,” he added, rapidly, and made a grab at the rail against the coming lurch.

Captain MacWhirr, unprepared, took a run and brought himself up with a jerk by an awning stanchion.

“A profane man,” he said, obstinately.  “If this goes on, I’ll have to get rid of him the first chance.”

“It’s the heat,” said Jukes.  “The weather’s awful.  It would make a saint swear.  Even up here I feel exactly as if I had my head tied up in a woollen blanket.”

Captain MacWhirr looked up.  “D’ye mean to say, Mr. Jukes, you ever had your head tied up in a blanket?  What was that for?”

“It’s a manner of speaking, sir,” said Jukes, stolidly.

“Some of you fellows do go on!  What’s that about saints swearing?  I wish you wouldn’t talk so wild.  What sort of saint would that be that would swear?  No more saint than yourself, I expect.  And what’s a blanket got to do with it—­or the weather either. . . .  The heat does not make me swear—­does it?  It’s filthy bad temper.  That’s what it is.  And what’s the good of your talking like this?”

Thus Captain MacWhirr expostulated against the use of images in speech, and at the end electrified Jukes by a contemptuous snort, followed by words of passion and resentment:  “Damme!  I’ll fire him out of the ship if he don’t look out.”

And Jukes, incorrigible, thought:  “Goodness me!  Somebody’s put a new inside to my old man.  Here’s temper, if you like.  Of course it’s the weather; what else?  It would make an angel quarrelsome—­let alone a saint.”

All the Chinamen on deck appeared at their last gasp.