Near the docks where the China boats come in, there lies an old wharf gone pretty much to decay. Rafferty’s Wharf is the name it goes by. It bears about the same relationship to the modern sea front that Monterey bears to San Francisco, for its rotten piles, bored by sea weevils and waving their weeds languidly to the green water that washes them, were young in the days when grain went aboard ship by the sackful and the tank ships of the Standard Oil Company were floating only in the undreamed-of future.
If you hunt for it, you will find it very difficult to discover; and if you discover it, you will gain little by your discovery but melancholy.
The great grain elevators pouring their rivers of wheat into the holds of the great grain freighters overshadow it with their majesty, and go as often as you will, there is never a decent, live ship moored to its bitts.
The cripples of the sea are brought here for a rest, or for sale, before starting with a last kick of their propellers for the breaking-up yards; and here, on this bright morning, when Mr. Shiner and his two seafaring companions appeared on the scene, this veritable cripple home only showed two inmates—a brig and a grey-painted, single-funnelled steamship with rust runnings staining her paint, verdigris on her brasswork, no boats at her davits, and a general air of neglect, slovenliness, and disreputability beggaring description.
The Penguin had never been a beauty to look at, and she had always been a beast to roll; even rolling plates, though they had improved her a bit, had not cured her. She had only one good point—speed—and that was an accident; she had not been built for speed; she had been built to carry cable and to lay it and mend it; speed had come to her by that law which rules that to every ship built comes some quality or defect not reckoned for by the designer and builder.
Shiner & Co., having hailed the watchmen, crossed the gangplank to the desolate deck, the Captain with frank disapproval on his face, Harman sniffing and trying to look cheerful at the same time, like a salesman keeping a fair face above the rotten game he is offering for sale.
“Great Neptune!” said the Captain, glancing around him.
“She is a bit gone to neglect,” said Shiner, “but it’s all on the surface. She’s as sound as a bell where it really matters.”
“Them funnel guys,” said Harman.
“Yes, they want tightening, and the want of boats doesn’t make her look any better; but boats will be supplied according to regulation. You won’t know her when I’ve had half a dozen fellows at her for a couple of days. All that brasswork wants doing, and a lick of paint will liven her up; but she’s not a yacht, anyhow, and a sound deck under one’s feet is a long way better than a good appearance.”