Tait's people put us off with a defective lock on the cabin door? The
Captain could see directly he set eye on it. Have it replaced at once.
The little straws, Bates . . . the little straws. . . ."

The lock was replaced accordingly, and a few days afterwards the
Nan-Shan steamed out to the East, without MacWhirr having offered any
further remark as to her fittings, or having been heard to utter a
single word hinting at pride in his ship, gratitude for his appointment,
or satisfaction at his prospects.

With a temperament neither loquacious nor taciturn he found very little
occasion to talk. There were matters of duty, of course--directions,
orders, and so on; but the past being to his mind done with, and the
future not there yet, the more general actualities of the day required
no comment--because facts can speak for themselves with overwhelming
precision.

Old Mr. Sigg liked a man of few words, and one that "you could be sure
would not try to improve upon his instructions." MacWhirr satisfying
these requirements, was continued in command of the Nan-Shan, and
applied himself to the careful navigation of his ship in the China seas.
She had come out on a British register, but after some time Messrs. Sigg
judged it expedient to transfer her to the Siamese flag.

At the news of the contemplated transfer Jukes grew restless, as if
under a sense of personal affront. He went about grumbling to himself,
and uttering short scornful laughs. "Fancy having a ridiculous
Noah's Ark elephant in the ensign of one's ship," he said once at the
engine-room door. "Dash me if I can stand it: I'll throw up the billet.
Don't it make you sick, Mr. Rout?" The chief engineer only cleared his