“In January we went to dry-dock, an’ in the next dock lay the Grotkau, their big freighter that was the Dolabella o’ Piegan, Piegan & Walsh’s line in ’84—a Clyde-built iron boat, a flat-bottomed, pigeon-breasted, under-engined, bull-nosed bitch of a five thousand ton freighter, that would neither steer, nor steam, nor stop when ye asked her. Whiles she’d attend to her helm, whiles she’d take charge, whiles she’d wait to scratch herself, an’ whiles she’d buttock into a dockhead. But Holdock and Steiner had bought her cheap, and painted her all over like the Hoor o’ Babylon, an’ we called her the Hoor for short.” (By the way, McPhee kept to that name throughout the rest of his tale; so you must read accordingly.) “I went to see young Bannister—he had to take what the Board gave him, an’ he an’ Calder were shifted together from the Breslau to this abortion—an’ talkin’ to him I went into the dock under her. Her plates were pitted till the men that were paint, paint, paintin’ her laughed at it. But the warst was at the last. She’d a great clumsy iron twelve-foot Thresher propeller—Aitcheson designed the Kite’s’—and just on the tail o’ the shaft, behind the boss, was a red weepin’ crack ye could ha’ put a penknife to. Man, it was an awful crack!
“‘When d’ ye ship a new tail-shaft?’ I said to Bannister.
“He knew what I meant. ‘Oh, yon’s a superfeecial flaw,’ says he, not lookin’ at me.
“‘Superfeecial Gehenna!’ I said. ‘Ye’ll not take her oot wi’ a solution o’ continuity that like.’
“‘They’ll putty it up this evening,’ he said. ‘I’m a married man, an’—ye used to know the Board.’
“I e’en said what was gie’d me in that hour. Ye know how a drydock echoes. I saw young Steiner standin’ listenin’ above me, an’, man, he used language provocative of a breach o’ the peace. I was a spy and a disgraced employé, an’ a corrupter o’ young Bannister’s morals, an’ he’d prosecute me for libel. He went away when I ran up the steps—I’d ha’ thrown him into the dock if I’d caught him—an’ there I met McRimmon, wi’ Dandie pullin’ on the chain, guidin’ the auld man among the railway lines.
“‘McPhee,’ said he, ‘ye’re no paid to fight Holdock, Steiner, Chase & Company, Limited, when ye meet. What’s wrong between you?’
“‘No more than a tail-shaft rotten as a kail-stump. For ony sakes go an’ look, McRimmon. It’s a comedietta.’
“‘I’m feared o’ yon conversational Hebrew,’ said he. ‘Whaur’s the flaw, an’ what like?’
“‘A seven-inch crack just behind the boss. There’s no power on earth will fend it just jarrin’ off.’