Page:Ballinger Price--Fortune of the Indies.djvu/120

 just settling to a fine baritone, and he was more in demand than his modesty relished. Resthaven is not very learned in the latest jazz. Mark sang chanteys that his great-grandfather's men had roared as they tramped around the capstan, and the syncopated singers of the Delphian listened, approving and impressed, and admitted that "those old fellows sure did know how to sling the harmony." The youngest engineer tamed his instrument sufficiently to pick out somber chords in accompaniment to "Bony was a Warrior" and "Old Stormalong," and a new musical craze swept the Delphian, even reaching to the ears of the silent captain in his chintz-curtained cabin.

But songs claimed the least part of shipboard days. Alan, in his little high-perched cubicle, hung fascinated above his wireless instruments while the silent, unseen sound-waves flung forth their mysterious antennae over the sea. Mark, in the engine-room or out of it, studied and pondered continuously, his head filled with "lap and lead," the pitch and slip of a screw, and the thousand intricacies of the big triple expansion engine. He almost forgot, perhaps, the errand that had made an oiler of him, and