Before Ferrier went to Yarmouth he heard that Fullerton was astounded at the number of financial sheep who had followed the plucky bell-wether.  Said he, “We shall never turn our backs now.  There will be three hospital cruisers on the stocks before the autumn, and your steamer will serve to supply them when we have them at work.  If I were not fixed on God’s firm ground, I should think I had passed away and was dreaming blissfully.”

Oh! the fury and hurry around that steamer!  Men were toiling without cessation during all night and all day; one shift relieved another, and Cassall employed two superintendents instead of one.  The way the notion came to him was this:—­he had an abrupt but most essentially pleasant way of getting into conversation with casual strangers of all ranks, and he always managed to learn something from them.  “Nice smack that on the stocks,” he remarked to a bronzed, blue-eyed man who was standing alert on a certain quay.

“Yes, sir.  That’s honest oak.  I like that.  But that other’s not so honest.”

“You mean the steamer?”

“Yes, sir.  I don’t like the way things goes along.  The surveyor’s been down.  He and the manager are having champagne together now, and you may bet there’s some skulking work going on in the dark corners.  I know the ocean tramps, sir.  Many’s the time I’ve seen the dishonest rivets start out of ’em like buttons of a woman’s bodice if it’s too tight.  If I was an owner, and building a vessel, I’d test every join and every rivet myself.  You force a faulty plate into place, and the first time your vessel gets across a sea she buckles, and there’s an end of all.”

“You understand shipbuilding?”

“Only a sailor does, sir.  He has the peril; the builders have the money.”

“What are you?” “Merchant captain, sir,” said the stout man, turning on the questioner a clear, light blue eye that shone with health and evident courage.

“Are you in a situation?”

“My vessel’s laid up, sir, and I’m waiting to take her again.”

“I’m not impertinent, but tell me your wages.”

“Ten pound a month, and good enough too, these bad times.”

“Then if you’ll superintend the building of a vessel for me, I’ll give you L150 a year—­or at that rate, and you shall have a smaller vessel afterwards, if you care to sail a mere smack.”

And so the bargain was struck, and Captain Powys was employed as bulldog, a special clause being inserted in the contract to that effect.

“Men won’t like it,” said the builder.  “They’ll lead him a life.”