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 "and if ever we get back to New Zealand, aboot which I have me doubts, I mean to have a word with them owners for sendin' such a bunch of trouble to sea."

"She seems to be working all right," Dave suggested mildly.

"Seems to!" the Scot said in scornful accents. "I s'pose you 're deaf on one side so you canna hear that clackety-clack. It fair gives me toothache to listen to it. Dinna say I told you, but I have my suspicions them engines was once used by Noah in the Ark. They 're worn out, and it passes my wit to know how they hold together. Every bearing is as loose as old age can make it, there is n't a steam pipe that does n't leak, and at night when I turn in I expect to find the whole lot of junk has punched a hole in the bottom of the ship and fallen through by mornin'."

Although Dave guessed much of this was exaggerated, it did not tend to make him feel any happier about his choice of ships.