"So down they come, the Colonel first, one foot at a time touchin' the ladder, the Major following. When he reached the deck and wheeled around to look at me you just ought to have seen his face.
"'Are you the Captain?' he says, and he looked me over 'bout as the admiral had done.
"'I be,' I said, 'Captain Robert Brandt, of Pigeon Cove, Cape Ann, master and owner of the sloop Screamer, at your service'—I kep' front side to him. 'What can I do for you?'
"'Well, Captain,' he began, 'perhaps it is none of our business, but the Captain of the brig here,' and he pointed up above him, 'has asked us to look over your tackle and see whether it is safe enough to lift this stone. He's afraid you'll drop it and smash his deck in. Since I've seen it, and what you propose to lift it with, I've told him there's no danger, for you'll never get it off the deck. We are both officers of the Engineering Corps, and it is our business to know about such things.'
"'What makes you think the Screamer won't lift it?' I asked.
"'Well,' says the Colonel, looking aloft, 'her boom ain't big enough, and that Manila rope is too light. I should think it wasn't over three and three-quarter-inch rope. We all know fifteen tons is enough weight for that size rope, even with a fourfold purchase, and we understand you say this stone weighs twenty-one.'
"'I'm sorry, gentlemen,' I said, 'and if you are worried about it you'd better go 'board the brig, for I'm about ready to pick the stone up and land her.'
"Well, the Major said he guessed he would, if I was determined to pull the mast out of my sloop, but the Colonel said he'd stay by and see it out.
"Just then Bill Nevins stuck his head out of the fo'c's'le. He was blacker than I was; all smeared with grease and stripped to his waist. It was hot enough anywhere, but it was sizzlin' down where he was.
"'All ready, Cap'n,' he says. 'She's got every pound she can carry.'