And that was what I meant when I asked the lady in the barouche at the Park gate whether she ever felt that shoulder now. And the man I dine with to-night is not called Boulson, but he has a charge of dust-shot—the result of a boyish experiment—in his right arm.
THE END OF THE “MOOROO”
“How long can you give us?”
The man who asked this question turned his head and looked up through a maze of bright machinery. But he did not rise from his recumbent position. He was, in fact, lying on his face on a steel-bar grating—in his shirt-sleeves—his hands black with oil and steel filings.
The captain of the Mooroo—far up above on the upper platform—leant his elbow on the steel banister and reflected for exactly two seconds. He was in the habit of sleeping and thinking very quickly.
“I reckon that we will be on the rocks in about twenty minutes to half an hour—unless you can get her going.”
The chief engineer muttered something which was not audible above the roar of the wind through the rigging and the wash of the green seas that leapt over the bulwarks of the well-deck.
“What?” yelled the captain, leaning over the balustrade.
“D—n it,” reiterated the chief, with his head hidden.