Chapter III

A small army of men swarmed over, under and through the huge Narcissus for the next three weeks, and the hearts of Cappy Ricks and Matt Peasley were like to burst with pride as they stood on the bridge with Captain Mike Murphy, while he ran the vessel over the measured course to test her speed, and swung her in the bay while adjusting her compass. She was as beautiful as money and paint could make her, and when Terence Reardon, in calm disregard of orders, came up on the bridge to announce his unbounded faith in the rejuvenated condensers and to predict a modest coal bill for the future, Mike Murphy so far forgot himself as to order the steward to bring up a bottle of something and begged Mr. Reardon to join him in three fingers of nepenthe to celebrate the occasion.

"T'ank you, sor, but I never dhrink--on djooty," Mr. Reardon retorted with chill politeness, "nor," he added, "wit' me immejiate superiors."

A superficial analysis of this remark will convince the most sceptical that Mr. Reardon, with true Hibernian adroitness, had managed to convey an insult without seeming to convey it.

"Isn't that a pity!" the skipper replied. "We'll excuse you to attend to your duty, Mr. Reardon;" and he bowed the chief toward the companion leading to the boat deck. The latter departed, furious, with an uncomfortable feeling of having been out-generaled; and once a good Irishman and true has undergone that humiliation it is a safe bet that the Dove of Peace has lost her tail feathers.

"That's an unmannerly chief engineer," Mike Murphy announced blandly, "but for all that he's not without his good points. He'll not waste money in his department."

"A virtue which I trust you will imitate in yours, captain," Cappy Ricks snapped dryly. "Is Reardon working short-handed?"

"Only while we're loading, when he'll need just enough men to keep steam up in the winches. When we go to sea, however, he'll have a full crew, but the fun of it is they'll be non-union men with the exception of the engineers and officers. The engineers will all belong to the Marine Engineers' Association and the mates to Harbor 15, Masters' and Pilots' Association."

"He'll do nothing of the sort," Matt Peasley declared quietly. "We have union crews in all our other steamers, and the unions will declare a strike on us if we put non-union men in the Narcissus."

"Of course--if they find out. But they'll not. Besides, we're going to the Atlantic Coast, so why should we bring a high-priced crew into a low-priced market, Mr. Ricks? Leave it to me, sir. I'll load the ship with longshoremen entirely, and we'll sail with the crew of that German liner that came a few days ago to intern in Richardson's Bay until the European war is over."

"I'm not partial to the German