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58 "Well, you know, he has a lot of gear to look after." "T know that. assistant you placed on my watch to see what the trouble was, as I was in a hurry to get the ashes up. I'm blessed if he didn't come down the ladder in about ten minutes to say that he couldn't find out what the trouble was. So then I--" "T suppose he got drenched." "Surest thing you know. He was wet through to the skin and shiver- ing with the cold." "So then you went up?" "Naw," said'the third, hastily, "so then I had the ashes wheeled into the other boiler room and sent them up that way." °- "Good judgment, second, sarcastically. "Yes. I knew the hoist could wait till the weather got better, so long as the other was in working order. At the change of the watcn the fourth comes down looking for trouble. first said that we had skipped some of our ashes, just because .we hadn't managed to get them all wheeled through before the -watch was up. He had the nerve to want me to go up and find out what was the mat- ter with the hoist, too! Then he said that there was no coal on the plates for his clean fires, but I said 'what's the use of putting coal out " again,' said the qust tO have' tt'. washed into the wings?' " "Lumps wont . wash into: the wings,' argued the second. "IT know that; but my men were wheeling ashes and didn't have time to go into the bunkers and look out round coal. He said that we were short of water in the boilers, too!' "And were you?" asked the second. "Well, I might have been,' an- swered the third, reluctantly. "It's mighty difficult to judge what water you're carrying when the ship is ' wallowing about the way this old hooker is." "Fine old moss-grown excuse." The second spoke witheringly, and = the third looked injured. "T'm,, only, telling you all this as I know. the fourth won't be able to tell you quick enough when you, go on watch, especially if MaRS aren't all : right." A} uote "What made. you, sie in so Pits toy dinner?" asked the second, - "Well, you see, a gage gla:s burst just before we got up the ladder, and-- "Perhaps fee fourth fired a piece of coal at it," suggested the smiling second, So I sent that bright . He 4 for "nent presence of the gentlewomen Tae Marine REVIEW "That's what I thought," answered his subordinate, seriously. "It was on the for'ard end of the center boiler, too. To make matters worse my noble assistant had his hand hurt by a clinker hitting it when he was climbing the ladder to the hoist, so I had to lend a hand on the glass. In _ taking the . broken glass out Harris dropped one of the nuts down on the floor plates, where it mingled with the coal. By the time I had run along the grating and climbed down the ladder a sea had washed the coal across. the boiler room, taking the nut with it." "Why didn't you jump down on ite, "And break my blessed neck? Well, the fourth wouldn't let his men stop firing long enough to let us search through the coal, so, by the time I had found the storekeeper and got another nut some considerable time was lost. We were just getting along all right when you won't guess what the fourth did." "Tell me." "Well, he gave his men the wink and they started baal out the fire right below where we were working on the glass." "Perhaps it was his first fire." "That was the excuse he gave. He yelled out in front of his men, too, that we were taking long enough to fit a new end on the boiler! . Ips only his size saves h"m. How cculd we work in all that smoke and steam?" "Vapor," corrected the second. "Well, vapor,' growled the third "since you're so darned particular," "Tt's a hard life,' commented the second, as he refilled his pipe. '"Tt is, on this rattle-trap,' was the third's parting growl, "I wouldn't sail on this old hooker another trip for a hundred a month." The second, when alone, smiled quizzically. Second engineers know-- as does also the engineer awaiting promotion--that the man who is al- ways threatening to resign has the postage stamp beat a mile when it comes to sticking, THe "Stanp-By" Man. &® & wy Ship Building in Ancient History. Geo. W. Dickie, who is known the world over from his long connection with the Union Iron Works of -San Francisco, of which he was for many years general manager, in his presiden- tial address to the Technical Society of the Pacine ;Coast in January, -said 'in part: "In thinking over what I might say to the technical society at this annual meeting, I have been embarrassed by the fact that this duty has developed upon me so often that I have already exhausted the general technical sub- jects that usually form the groundwork such addrésses. This embarrass- was 'further increased by 'the of the society, to whom I must address myself as well as to the members, I con- cluded, partly for the instruction and benefit of our better halves, to air the superiority of the engineer and his work over that of all other professional men of this and all other times in the history of the world; in fact, I might take the Scotchman's toast for my sub- ject, which in English is, 'Here is to us! made in engineering. Who is like us? Nobody.' "Tt is often said by those who de- sire to point out the dangers of our time, that our so much-lauded modern civilization is grossly materialistic, that material things have been placed above the intellectual and spiritual. After listening to such warnings against the tendency of our material advancement, one is apt to infer that other and pre- vious civilizations were intellectual and spiritual, or, at any rate, free from the taint of being the product of the en gineer; yet when one considers the oF gin of the word "civis," a citizen, it 18 naturally associated with the construc- tive.' "As spon as we find in ihe history of the world large numbers 'of people col- lected on a restricted area, 'there we find that considérable progtéss' has' 'been The ground!/im- mediately' surrounding | such' populots areas could not support them, so there was néed of roads and bridges or else ships to bring them their food. The earlier civilizations in Europe began in countries with extensivé seaboards, t0