"Yah! Why don't yer get more 'revs' out o' those rear engines?" yapped the insulting little Cockney boy, repeating a few words used by the captain himself the day before, and preparing to beat a hasty retreat through the doorway.
"You dirty ragamuffin!" shouted the stout man, flushing with anger, and hurling the oil can, which he held in his hand, at the gamin.
For one instant the tantalising little street arab disappeared on the other side of the door, but, when the missile had spent its force, and had crumpled up against the panelling, leaving a pool of oil on the floor, the urchin's head reappeared once more. The opportunity was too good to be lost. All the vivacity of the boy was pitted against the hot tempered Welshman, and Gadget was a master of invective, and had a wonderful command of high sounding words, the real meaning of which, however, he did not properly understand. But he was just dying for another of these encounters, so common in his experience of things down Stepney way, or along the West India Dock Road.
"Call yerself an ingineer?" came the next gibe from the saucy, impudent little face, now distorted into something grotesque and ugly. "We'll be two hours late at Cairo, an' all because you ain't fit to stoke a donkey-ingine."
"Ger-r-r-o-u-t!" shouted the angry man, making a rush for his tormentor. "I'll break your head if you come in here again!"
"I'd like ter see yer!" came the tart reply, ten seconds later, as the head reappeared once again, for Gadget had retreated swiftly some way down the keel corridor, as his opponent made for him with a huge spanner.
The engineer had determined to lock the door of the little engine-room against the little stinging gad-fly, but of course the sharp-witted rascal had outwitted, or "spike-bozzled" him, as they say in the Air Force, by snatching the key and locking the communication-door on the outer side.
Morgan was beginning to find out to his cost that it was a very unwise proceeding to cross the path of this pertinacious stowaway. He could not get rid of him, and this morning, after the skipper's recent remarks, he was trying to recover his lost reputation by extra attention to his engines. Besides, the captain would be along on his rounds again soon, and, if the engines were not doing their accustomed revolutions, there might be trouble.
Thinking he had now got rid of his tormentor, Morgan turned to examine his engines, when the key turned softly in the lock once more, and the irrepressible mascot, peering through the slightly open door, grinned, and then gave vent to the one word, which means so much:--
"Spike-bozzled! Yah!"