“Well, getting tired?” was Bert Rhine’s insolent greeting. “Anything we can do for you?”
“Yes, there is,” I answered sharply. “You can save your heads so that when you return to work there will be enough of you left to do the work.”
“If you are making threats—” Charles Davis began, but was silenced by a glare from the gangster.
“Well, what is it?” Bert Rhine demanded. “Cough it off your chest.”
“It’s for your own good,” was my reply. “It is coming on to blow, and all that unfurled canvas aloft will bring the yards down on your heads. We’re safe here, aft. You are the ones who will run risks, and it is up to you to hustle your crowd aloft and make things fast and ship-shape.”
“And if we don’t?” the gangster sneered.
“Why, you’ll take your chances, that is all,” I answered carelessly. “I just want to call your attention to the fact that one of those steel yards, end-on, will go through the roof of your forecastle as if it were so much eggshell.”
Bert Rhine looked to Charles Davis for verification, and the latter nodded.
“We’ll talk it over first,” the gangster announced.
“And I’ll give you ten minutes,” I returned. “If at the end of ten minutes you’ve not started taking in, it will be too late. I shall put a bullet into any man who shows himself.”