Jim was horrified at the suggestion. Though he was American born, and was blessed with an American's average allowance of assurance, the lad was undoubtedly modest when his own actions were in question. He would have given anything to escape from what promised to be an ordeal, and made numerous excuses. But Phineas bore him off in spite of all of them, and Tom and Sam and Ching fell in as a bodyguard in rear, in case his protégé should attempt to escape.
"It's not what you owe to yourself," he said, with a laugh, "but what you owe to the boys. Remember that they're working here all day, with little chance of getting news but what comes to them at the club. We're steadygoing stagers here on the canal, and it isn't often that a chap like you turns up. When he does he's got to stand the ruction, and guess that's what you've got to do. Don't I jest wish you and I could change places."
Jim agreed with him heartily, though, as a matter of fact, when he came to face what in his imagination would be an ordeal, he discovered it to be but the pleasantest ceremony. Quiet, earnest men crowded round him to shake his hand; then he was bidden to sit at a table in the centre of his new comrades.
"Yer see," said Harry, who regarded our hero with an envious expression, "that 'ere Tomkins ain't the man to talk, while the Major's much too busy; besides, guess his head's much too sore for chatting. You jest get right in at it, and give us the yarn from start to finish."
ATTACKED BY NATIVES
Jim did as he was bidden, describing every incident, and drawing a growl from many of his audience when he came to that part of his narrative which dealt with the injury to the engine; for it can well be imagined that amongst those white employees on the huge canal a goodly number were, if not actually engineers by profession, certainly most strongly imbued with a leaning towards it. All may have been said to have had mechanical knowledge, since there were few who did not run a steam navvy, a rock drill, a rail-laying plant, or a lifting derrick of some description.