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Page 102
The Second, who was really an agreeable person, with a sense of
humour, smiled. He rather liked the Red Un.
"Do you know, William," he observed--William was the Red Un's
name--"I'd be willing to offer two shillings for an itemised
account of what's in that drawer?"
"Fill it with shillings," boasted the Red Un, "and I'll not tell
you."
"Three?" said the Second cheerfully.
"No."
"Four?"
"Why don't you look yourself?"
"Just between gentlemen, that isn't done, young man. But if you
volunteered the information, and I saw fit to make you a present of,
say, a pipe, with a box of tobacco----"
"What do you want to know for?"
"I guess you know."
The Red Un knew quite well. The Chief and the two Seconds were still
playing their game, and the Chief was still winning; but even the
Red Un did not know how the Chief won--and as for the two Seconds
and the Third and the Fourth, they were quite stumped.
This was the game: In bad weather, when the ports are closed and
first-class passengers are yapping for air, it is the province of
the engine room to see that they get it. An auxiliary engine pumps
cubic feet of atmosphere into every cabin through a series of
airtrunks.
So far so good. But auxiliaries take steam; and it is exceedingly
galling to a Junior or Senior, wagering more than he can afford on
the run in his watch, to have to turn valuable steam to
auxiliaries--"So that a lot of blooming nuts may smoke in their
bunks!" as the Third put it.
The first move in the game is the Chief's, who goes to bed and
presumably to sleep. After that it's the engine-room move, which
gives the first class time to settle down and then shuts off the
airpumps. Now there is no noise about shutting off the air in the
trunks. It flows or it does not flow. The game is to see whether the
Chief wakens when the air stops or does not. So far he had always
wakened.
It was uncanny. It was worse than that--it was damnable! Did not the
Old Man sleep at all?--not that he was old, but every Chief is the
Old Man behind his back. Everything being serene, and the
engine-room clock marking twelve-thirty, one of the Seconds would
shut off the air very gradually; the auxiliary would slow down,
wheeze, pant and die--and within two seconds the Chief's bell would
ring and an angry voice over the telephone demand what the several
kinds of perdition had happened to the air! Another trick in the
game to the Chief!
It had gone past joking now: had moved up from the uncanny to the
impossible, from the impossible to the enraging. Surreptitious
search of the Chief's room had shown nothing but the one locked
drawer. They had taken advantage of the Chief's being laid up in
Antwerp with a boil on his neck to sound the cabin for hidden wires.
They had asked the ship's doctor anxiously how long a man could do
without sleep. The doctor had quoted Napoleon.
* * * * *
"If at any time," observed the Second pleasantly, "you would like
that cigarette case the barber is selling, you know how to get it."
"Thanks, old man," said the Red Un loftily, with his eye on the
wall.
The Second took a step forward and thought better of it.
"Better think about it!"
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