Page:The Days Work (1899).djvu/337

 watter in the engine-room is a vara depressin' sight if ye think there 's like to be more comin'; but I did not consider that such was likely, and so, ye 'll note, I was not depressed."

"That 's all very well, but I want to know about the water," I said. "I 've told ye. There was six feet or more there, wi' Calder's cap floatin' on top."

"Where did it come from?"

"Weel, in the confusion o' things after the propeller had dropped off an' the engines were racin' an' a', it 's vara possible that Calder might ha' lost it off his head an' no troubled himself to pick it up again. I remember seein' that cap on him at Southampton."

"I don't want to know about the cap. I 'm asking where the water came from and what it was doing there, and why you were so certain that it was n't a leak, McPhee?"

"For good reason—for good an' sufficient reason."

"Give it to me, then."

"Weel, it 's a reason that does not properly concern myself only. To be preceese, I 'm of opinion that it was due, the watter, in part to an error o' judgment in another man. We can a' mak' mistakes."

"Oh, I beg your pardon!"

"I got me to the rail again, an', 'What 's wrang?' said Bell, hailin'.

"'She 'll do,' I said. 'Send 's o'er a hawser, an' a man to steer. I 'll pull him in by the life-line.'

"I could see heads bobbin' back an' forth, an' a whuff or two o' strong words. Then Bell said: 'They 'll not