“‘How do Holdock, Steiner & Chase feed their men?’ said he.
“‘Ye can see,’ I said, knockin’ the top off another beer-bottle. ‘I did not sign to be starved, McRimmon.’
“‘Nor to swim, either,’ said he, for Bell had tauld him how I carried the line aboard. ‘Well, I’m thinkin’ you’ll be no loser. What freight could we ha’ put into the Lammergeyer would equal salvage on four hunder thousand pounds—hull an’ cargo? Eh, McPhee? This cuts the liver out o’ Holdock, Steiner, Chase & Company, Limited. Eh, McPhee? An’ I’m sufferin’ from senile dementia now? Eh, McPhee? An’ I’m not daft, am I, till I begin to paint the Lammergeyer? Eh, McPhee? Ye may weel lift your leg, Dandie! I ha’ the laugh o’ them all. Ye found watter in the engine-room?’
“‘To speak wi’oot prejudice,’ I said, ‘there was some watter.’
“‘They thought she was sinkin’ after the propeller went. She filled wi’ extraordinary rapeedity. Calder said it grieved him an’ Bannister to abandon her.’
“I thought o’ the dinner at Radley’s, an’ what like o’ food I’d eaten for eight days.
“‘It would grieve them sore,’ I said.
“‘But the crew would not hear o’ stayin’ and workin’ her back under canvas. They’re gaun up an’ down sayin’ they’d ha’ starved first.’
“‘They’d ha’ starved if they’d stayed,’ said I.
“‘I tak’ it, fra Calder’s account, there was a mutiny a’most.’