"I am aware of it."
"Yet I bet the chief and old Robinson don't think any the more of you for it."
"I have heard that the chief so far committed himself as to say that you were the best engineer he'd ever had."
"I heard so too, which goes to prove my point. You are paid in this world, not for pleasing yourself, but pleasing others. I believe I could get my costs down to yours, but the chief and Robinson are eminently 'safe' men. I shall never get a shut-down. Old Robinson is on tenter hooks whenever you are on evening shift. 'That chap cuts things too fine,' he told me the other day."
"Did he? Well! he always leaves me severely alone on the evening shift."
"Of course, because if you get a shut-down it will be 'in the unavoidable absence of Mr Robinson or Mr Chief.' See?"
"Yes; I see and comprehend, but don't care."
Darwen's eyes glistened with honest admiration. "There is much of the aboriginal Saxon in you, Carstairs, with your grey eyes and light hair and that big, bull-dog jaw. Rightly, you should worship Thor and Odin, the gods of force. It's absurd for your guv'nor to be a minister of the Christian religion."
"I agree with your last point; we're a family of seamen, really. We worship Neptune."
"Ah! the sea, water, steam, electricity. Hence Jack Carstairs, electrical engineer, seaman twice removed, eh?"