Page:MacGrath--The luck of the Irish.djvu/330

 offer. It was no time to dodder, unless he wanted to lay up in port for weeks. It might be that he had fallen into a bit of genuine luck.

"Five o'clock. I suppose I'll have to take a chance. Step aboard the launch, Mr.—"

"Grogan—William Grogan, of Burns, Dolan & Co., New York."

"Glad if you can help us."

"You've got a good working-plan of the piping?" "Yes. Queer game. Usually the carpenter and the assistant engineer could have handled the job. They left the ship at Saigon. Lascar crew—good servants, good sailors, but not up to a job like this. And everybody in Singapore is on some other job. Worse luck!"

At seven o'clock William had located the vital spots. The port side of the main deck, forward and amidship, would have to be torn up. The job would take perhaps eight or ten days. He would depend upon the manager for helpers. He would give his services as expert for two hundred dollars; they could accept it or decline it, as they pleased. The manager, seeing his profits dwindling—but forgetting that he was in luck to have any profits—swore roundly that the price was exorbitant.

"Give it and have done arguing," cried the chief engineer. "We're in a bally rotten hole, and this chap seems able to help us out. The whole job will come to about two hundred pounds. Our lines give you a deal of business, man, and for