housework yet and Percival requires much care and attention....”

His wife’s letter contained a memorandum of the expenses attendant upon the ushering of Donald Percival into this mundane sphere, and it caused McKenzie to break out into a cold sweat. “Raising kids is a devilish expensive business,” he confided to the mate, who had “raised” six. “This youngster of mine stands me something like sixty pounds!” “Saxty poonds?” gasped Mr. McLeish. “Losh, mon, but yer mistress mun be awfu’ delicate! Mistress McLeish brings them tae port ivery year an’ five quid covers the hale business.... Saxty poonds for yin bairn? I c’d raise a dizzen for that amoont o’ siller. Ye’ll need tae be lucky, Captun, an’ fall across some disabled shups yince in a while if ye’re plannin’ tae have a family. Saxty poonds? Ma conscience!”

It was through a streak of God-given luck that the sixty pounds was paid, and Donald could thank the Fates for sending an Italian emigrant ship with a broken tail-end shaft across the path of his worried Daddy. McKenzie picked her up in a gale of wind south of Madeira, and he had his boats out and a hauling line aboard her ahead of a hungry Cardiff tramp who had been standing-by for eight hours waiting for the weather to moderate. “Sixty pounds has to be earned,” muttered McKenzie in his beard, “and there’s no Welsh coal-scuttle going to prevent me from getting it.” After a strenuous time, and parting hawser after hawser, McKenzie plucked the Italian into Madeira, and the salvage money that came to him afterwards ensured his son’s future as a free-born citizen.

The incident was used by Janet as a stepping-stone to her ambitions. After the salvage money had been awarded, she chased her husband “up to the office” and made him interview the Managing Director and ask for a command in the passenger trade. The official listened courteously to McKenzie’s plea (dictated by Janet) and as Suttons had benefitted considerably by the Captain’s picking up the helpless Italian, the promotion was forthcoming. With a sigh of regret, McKenzie carted his belongings from the comfortable River Plate freighter to the master’s quarters on the Ansonia—the old ship he had served in as chief officer.

The Ansonia was not the smart flyer of his younger days, but she still carried passengers. Second cabin and continental steerage thronged her decks outward from the Clyde to Boston, and four-footed passengers occupied the same decks homeward. Those were the days of the cheap emigrant fares—when the dissatisfied hordes of Central Europe were transported to the Land of Liberty for three pounds fifteen—and the Ansonia would ferry them across in eleven days. McKenzie drove her through sunshine and fog, calm or blow, and took chances. There was no money in slow passages at the cut-rates prevailing, and Alec often wished he were jogging to the south’ard in his nine-knot freighter with but little to worry him. In the Ansonia, the first grey streaks came in his blonde hair, and the lines deepened around his mouth and eyes.

Janet was happy for a time, but Suttons had better and faster ships than the one her husband was commanding. Their skippers were getting more money and were able to maintain “self-contained villas” and keep a servant. The return cargo of cattle which was the Ansonia’s paying eastward freight offended Janet’s sensibilities. She did not care to have Mrs. Sandys—wife of the master of the Sutton “crack” ship—asking her at a select “Conversazione” or “high tea”—“How many head of cattle did your husband lose last voyage?” or “I don’t suppose you visit your husband’s ship, Mrs. McKenzie. Those cattle boats are simply impossible!”

Janet, in her younger days, was not above laboring in odoriferous cattle byres, but, with her exalted station in life, the mere thought of the Ansonia’s cluttered decks and the honest farm-yard aroma which pervaded her and could be smelt a mile to loo’ard on a breezy day, gave her a sinking feeling and dampened her social ambitions.

She felt that she had exhausted all her “string pulling” resources, so she applied herself to imbuing her husband with more aggressiveness. Though passionately fond of his wife, yet there were times when McKenzie felt that he was being hounded ahead. Every cent he earned was spent in what his wife called “style,” and what Alec called “dog.” Janet dressed expensively and did much entertaining, and young Donald Percival was petted, spoiled, and cared for in a manner far beyond the rightful limits of a master mariner’s pay.

“Make yourself popular with the passengers, dear,” counselled his wifely mentor, “and drive your ship. Suttons like fast passages—”

“Aye,” interrupted Alec somewhat bitterly, “but they don’t like accidents. You know what happened to poor Thompson of the Syrania? Driving his ship in a fog to make fast time he cut a schooner in half and stove his bows in. Suttons lost a pile of money over that, and Thompson got the sack and is black-listed. His ticket was taken from him and he barely escaped being tried by an American court for manslaughter. I saw the poor chap in Boston this time, and what d’ye think he was doing? Timekeeping for a stevedore firm and getting ten dollars a week! A man who had commanded an Atlantic greyhound!”

Janet listened impatiently. “Oh, that was just his ill-fortune. I heard that he was in his bunk when the accident happened—”

Her husband made a gesture of mild irritation. “Good heavens, Janet! A man must sleep sometime,” he said. “Thompson had been on the bridge for sixty hours and was utterly played out. But that made no difference. It was his fault. He was driving her full speed in a fog and that’s where they got him—even though Suttons were driving him with their unwritten instructions—‘Be careful with your ship, Captain, but we expect you to make good passages!’ Drive your ship, but look-out if anything happens to her! That’s the English of that!”

By persistent urging, Janet’s exhortations had effect. McKenzie hounded the old Ansonia back and forth along the western ocean lanes and grew more grey hairs and deeper lines on his face with the worry and anxiety of long vigils on her bridge staring into the clammy mists through which his ship was storming. With a chief engineer who loved her wonderful old compound engines and who was willing to drive them, McKenzie commenced clipping down the Ansonia’s runs until one day she raced into Boston harbor an hour ahead of her best record twelve years before, and two days ahead of a rival company’s crack ship, which had left Glasgow at the same time.

The Boston newspapers, heralding the feat and containing a cut of Captain McKenzie and the ship, were forwarded to head office by the Boston agents. The Managing Director was delighted over the defeat of the rival company’s crack ship, for the American papers played it up strong, with two-column, heavy type head-lines and exaggerated description. After perusal, the canny Scotch manager gave some thought to McKenzie—the Yankee reporter dilated on the sub-head, ‘Scotch baronet’s nephew commands Sutton record breaker,’ (Alec had never opened his mouth about the relationship)—and he began to consider him seriously as master for the Sutton New York-Glasgow express steamship Cardonia.

A wealthy American, returning to the States after a lease of Dunsany Castle, unconsciously gave Alec the promotion which the manager had considered and postponed. The