“Please accept from me the enclosed small gift to go towards a little pocket-money.
“You are such a sensible boy I know that you require no advice from me, but as an old hand who has come through the mill myself I would just like to say how important it is for you to endeavour to give your employers full confidence in you from the start. This can best be gained:
“(1) By punctuality and close attention to your work at all times—but don’t allow your health to suffer through overwork.
“(2) Always carry out instructions given by those above you, whether you agree with them or not—and try to get instructions in writing if you are not sure of your man.
“(3) Always treat those above you with respect, no matter whether they are fools or know less than yourself.
“(4) Never give information unless you are perfectly sure, better to say you are not sure, but will look the matter up.
“(5) Never be anxious to show how quick you are by being the first out of the shop when the horn blows. It is better on these occasions to be a bit slow.
“Now this is a sermon by Thomas, but not one of your father’s—only that of an old cousin who has high expectations of you and is interested in your welfare.
“Goodbye and good luck.”
That little sermon by Thomas, with its admixture of shrewdness, wisdom, and kind-heartedness, may be taken as embodying the workaday rules of duty perfected by Andrews through a varied experience of sixteen years—rules doubtless as faithfully observed by himself as they were commended for the guidance of others. What may be called its horse sense, its blunt avowal of how to play the game, helps us towards a fuller understanding of the man, puts him in the plain light through which, every day in view of everyone, he passed. It shows us why he succeeded, why in any circumstances and irrespective almost of his higher qualities, he was bound to succeed. It explains, to some extent, what a workman meant in calling him “a born leader of men.” It helps us to understand why some called him a hard man and why he made a few enemies; helps us also to understand why the Islander who threatened to drop a bag of rivets on his head was treated with laughing amenity. What Andrews demanded of others he exacted in greater measure of himself. If at times he enforced his code of conduct with sternness, in that, as all who felt the weight of his hand would eventually acknowledge, he was but doing his plain duty. Did men skulk or scamp their job, they must be shown decisively that a shipyard was no place for them. Someone discovered asleep on a nine inch plank spanning an open ventilator must be taught discretion. But no bullying, no unfairness—above all, no show of malice.