Now and then, after shore leave, a drunken trimmer or stoker gets up to the Chief’s room and has to be subdued by the power of executive eye or the strength of executive arm.  As most Chiefs are Scots, the eye is generally sufficient.  So the Chief, mightily ferocious, turned about, eye set, as one may say, to annihilate a six-foot trimmer in filthy overalls and a hangover, and saw—­a small red-haired boy in a Turkish towel.

The boy quailed rather at the eye, but he had the courage of nothing to lose—­not even a pair of breeches—­and everything to gain.

“Please,” said the apparition, “the pilot’s gone, and you can’t put me off!”

The Chief opened his mouth and shut it again.  The mouth, and the modification of an eye set for a six-foot trimmer to an eye for a four-foot-ten urchin in a Turkish towel, produced a certain softening.  The Red Un, who was like the Chief in that he earned his way by pitting his wits against relentless Nature, smiled a little—­a surface smile, with fear just behind.

“The Captain’s boy’s my size; I could wear his clothes,” he suggested.

Now, back in that time when the Chief had kept a woman’s picture in his breast pocket instead of in a drawer of his desk, there had been small furtive hopes, the pride of the Scot to perpetuate his line, the desire of a man for a manchild.  The Chief had buried all that in the desk drawer with the picture; but he had gone overboard in his best uniform to rescue a wharf-rat, and he had felt a curious sense of comfort when he held the cold little figure in his arms and was hauled on deck, sputtering dirty river water and broad Scotch, as was his way when excited.

“And where ha’ ye been skulking since yesterday?” he demanded.

“In the bed where I was put till last night.  This morning early——­” he hesitated.

“Don’t lie!  Where were ye?”

“In a passenger’s room, under a bed.  When the passengers came aboard I had to get out.”

“How did ye get here?”

This met with silence.  Quite suddenly the Chief recognised the connivance of the crew, perhaps, or of a kindly stewardess.

“Who told you this was my cabin?” A smile this time, rather like the Senior Second’s when the Chief and he had shaken hands.

“A nigger!” he said.  “A coloured fella in a white suit.”

There was not a darky on the boat.  The Red Un, whose code was the truth when possible, but any lie to save a friend—­and that’s the code of a gentleman—­sat, defiantly hopeful, arranging the towel to cover as much as possible of his small person.

“You’re lying!  Do you know what we do with liars on this ship?  We throw them overboard!”

“Then I’m thinking,” responded the Turkish towel, “that you’ll be needing another Chief Engineer before long!”

Now, as it happened, the Chief had no boy that trip.  The previous one had been adopted after the last trip by a childless couple who had liked the shape of his nose and the way his eyelashes curled on his cheek.  The Chief looked at the Red Un; it was perfectly clear that no one would ever adopt him for the shape of his nose, and he apparently lacked lashes entirely.  He rose and took a bathrobe from a hook on the door.