Page:Jack Heaton, Wireless Operator (Collins, 1919).djvu/75

 bright day—it was the first of March—when dad told me to go out and see a prospect who wanted a 40 horse-power crude oil engine, I made one stone kill two sparrows and after fencing with the would-be buyer for half an hour I slipped over to the Lord’s Court Building where the Marconi Company had their offices and talked with my friend Sammis, the Chief Engineer.

“No, there isn’t anything you’d want just now,” he reflected. “There’s a couple of new ships building in Belfast for the  and one of them will be launched in a couple of months. I might be able to get a berth for you on her.”

“I want to go right now if I go at all,” I told him, for the land ached in my bones like the old Harry and I knew the only way I could get relief was to go to sea.

“How would you like to go on a seal catching expedition to the Arctic? It ought to be a pretty good health trip for an overworked salesman. The Polar Bear and Midnight Sun sail in a couple of weeks from St. Johns, Newfoundland, to be gone for a month or so and the pay is double that of any operator in the trans