Feeling painfully outside of it all—almost inclined to wonder if his troubles were real, if the mills behind him, the lumber piled on either side of him, the laden steamer before him were real; if this round world, even, with its mixture of ups and downs and ins and outs, were real—Mr. Higginson stood on the wharf at Captain Craig's side. The steamer's fires had not yet been started and it was now after eleven o'clock. The engineers had disappeared, and with them the oilers and stokers; the wheelmen were gone, and the lookouts—nothing left in Wauchung but a few deckhands. And now, to cap it all, Halloran had dropped suddenly off the surface of the earth, leaving a certain old Scotch captain to rumble internally and now and then to burst into eruption with scorching phrases about boys that ought to be back in the nursery, about babes that had been prematurely weaned.
Into this scene of gloom and desolation came Halloran, recognizable half-way up to the mill by the purple sweater, carrying a bulging canvas telescope; and following him, somewhat scant of breath, hurried a fat man with a patent-leather valise. The gloomy ones observed them at the same moment. Mr. Higginson gave a nervous start, then was swept by a feeling of relief that almost brought a smile to his face. The Captain looked—and looked—and—the rumblings ceased. Nothing further was heard that day about nursing-bottles.
“Hallo, Robbie,” was all that Craig could bring himself to say when the fat man had reached the wharf and set down his valise and begun swabbing his face with a handkerchief that showed signs of use since he had fallen into Halloran's hands.
“How are you, Cap'n?”
Mr. Higginson drew his manager aside.
“Who is this man?”
“He is the new engineer.”
Mr. Higginson's eyes shifted from Halloran to the fat man and back again two or three times. Then, as time was pressing, he decided to ask no questions.
“There is a man up the river that understands firing,” he said. “Crosman has gone up to get him.”