Near the docks where the China boats come in, there lies an old wharf gone pretty much to decay. Rafferty’s Wharf is the name it goes by. It bears about the same relationship to the modern sea front that Monterey bears to San Francisco, for its rotten piles, bored by sea weevils and waving their weeds languidly to the green water that washes them, were young in the days when grain went aboard ship by the sackful and the tank ships of the Standard Oil Company were floating only in the undreamed-of future.

If you hunt for it, you will find it very difficult to discover; and if you discover it, you will gain little by your discovery but melancholy.

The great grain elevators pouring their rivers of wheat into the holds of the great grain freighters overshadow it with their majesty, and go as often as you will, there is never a decent, live ship moored to its bitts.

The cripples of the sea are brought here for a rest, or for sale, before starting with a last kick of their propellers for the breaking-up yards; and here, on this bright morning, when Mr. Shiner and his two seafaring companions appeared on the scene, this veritable cripple home only showed two inmates—a brig and a grey-painted, single-funnelled steamship with rust runnings staining her paint, verdigris on her brasswork, no boats at her davits, and a general air of neglect, slovenliness, and disreputability beggaring description.

The Penguin had never been a beauty to look at, and she had always been a beast to roll; even rolling plates, though they had improved her a bit, had not cured her. She had only one good point—speed—and that was an accident; she had not been built for speed; she had been built to carry cable and to lay it and mend it; speed had come to her by that law which rules that to every ship built comes some quality or defect not reckoned for by the designer and builder.

Shiner & Co., having hailed the watchmen, crossed the gangplank to the desolate deck, the Captain with frank disapproval on his face, Harman sniffing and trying to look cheerful at the same time, like a salesman keeping a fair face above the rotten game he is offering for sale.

“Great Neptune!” said the Captain, glancing around him.

“She is a bit gone to neglect,” said Shiner, “but it’s all on the surface. She’s as sound as a bell where it really matters.”

“Them funnel guys,” said Harman.

“Yes, they want tightening, and the want of boats doesn’t make her look any better; but boats will be supplied according to regulation. You won’t know her when I’ve had half a dozen fellows at her for a couple of days. All that brasswork wants doing, and a lick of paint will liven her up; but she’s not a yacht, anyhow, and a sound deck under one’s feet is a long way better than a good appearance.”

He followed the Captain, who had walked forward to the bow, where the picking-up gear cumbered the deck.

This consisted of a huge drum moved by cogwheels and worked through the picking-up engine by steam from the main boilers. On it would be wound the grapnel rope used for grappling for cable over the wheel let into the bow just at the point where in ordinary ships the heel of the bowsprit is grasped by the knightheads.

The Captain inspected this machine with attention, pressing on the cogs of the driving wheel with his thumb as though they were soft and he wished to discover how much they would dent; then, standing off a bit, he looked at it with his head on one side, as a knowing purchaser might look at a horse.

“Wants a drop of lubricating oil,” said Shiner tentatively.

“Gallons,” replied the Captain. He turned to the picking-up engine and pulled the lever over. This he did several times, releasing it and then pulling it over again as if for the gloomy pleasure of feeling its defects.

“Well,” said Shiner, “what do you think of the gear and engine?”

“Oh, they’ll work,” said the Captain, “but it will be a good job if they don’t work off their bedplates.”

“They’ll hold tight enough,” said Harman, pressing his foot on the brake of the engine. “There’s nothing wrong with them on the inside. Let’s have a look at the main.”

They came aft past the electrical testing room, and passed down the companionway to the engine room.

Here things were brighter, the weather having worked no effect.

“I have had them examined by an expert,” said Shiner. “He gave them an A-1 certificate. And the boilers are sound; they have been scaled and cleaned. Let’s go and look at the saloon.”

They came on deck, and Shiner led the way down the companionway to the saloon.

It was a big place, with a table running down the middle capable of seating twenty or thirty at a crush. Cabin doors opened on either side of it; at the stern end it bayed out into a lounge and a couch upholstered in red velvet; and at the end, by the door leading to the companionway, was fixed a huge sideboard with a mirror backing.

A faint air of old festivity and an odour of must and mildew lent their melancholy to the dim, irreligious light streaming down through the dirty skylight.

The Captain sniffed. Then he peeped into the cabins on either side, noticed the cockroaches that made hussar rushes for shelter, the fact that the doors stuck in their jambs, that the bunks were destitute of bedding, and the scuttles of the portholes sealed tight with verdigris.

“You can have the starboard cabin by the door,” said Shiner. “I’ll take the port. Or you can take the chart room; there’s a bunk there. Harman can have any of the other cabins he likes. We’ll all mess here, and we won’t grumble at being tightly packed.”

“You’ll have decent bedding put in?” said the Captain.

“That will be done, all right,” replied Shiner. “You need have no fear at all that the appointments won’t be up to date. There won’t be frills on the sheets, but there will be comfort.”

“Well, comfort is all I ask,” replied the Captain. “And you propose to put out this day week?”

“This day week. May I take it, now, that everything is settled?”

The Captain scratched his head for a moment, as if dislodging a last objection. Then he said:

“I’ll come.”