Glencannon, page 27
"Only a dozen?" said Mr. Glencannon, registering keen disappointment. "Weel, I'm afraid we'll have to forget it, then. A dozen face cloths wudna last me any time!"
"No? Too bad! But—ah—perhaps you could use one of these handsome carved bone napkin rings?"
"Only with the utmost difficulty," said Mr. Glencannon. "Ye see, I had the misfortune to be born left-handed."
"Dear, dear! But—ah—would you mind explaining what that's got to do with it?"
"That's exockly where the difficulty comes in," said Mr. Glencannon. "Oh, it's all vurra cumplicated, e'en obscure, as yere ain question omply deemonstrates, But noo, what other clever little knickknocks have ye got?"
From the suitcase the Reverend Mr. McDill produced a bottle within which, embedded in waves of painted plaster, was the beautifully-wrought model of a cargo ship. He set the bottle upon a little stand of varnished wood and proudly waved his hand at it. "There!" he said. "Isn't it a gem—a masterpiece? Think of the skill, the patience, the toil required to construct it, piece by piece, within the narrow confines of that common bottle!"
"Common bottle?" Mr. Glencannon repeated, a trifle tartly. "Why, it's a Duggan's bottle, as the wurrding in the glass plainly indicates!"
"Of course! Just an ordinary, standard whisky bottle—precisely my point! Have you ever seen anything like it?"
"Aye," Mr. Glencannon nodded. "The auld windjammer sailors used to fritter awa' their spare time making them, when they weren't too busy getting flogged, having scurvy, falling overboard south o' Cape Horn, or being trompled on by the bucko mates. How much are ye osking for it, Reeverend?"
"Eighteen shillings. Only eighteen shillings! Come—surely that interests you!"
"Aye, intensely! Ye see, I know a firm in Hong Kong, Chiang Foo and Company, that turns them oot for five sheelings each, and I wanted to check up. It just goes to show the grave danger that confronts us all—namely, the assaults upon our industry by yellow-bellied Oriental competition, made possible through the low standards o' living whuch obtain throughoot their benighted laboring closses. The fault, o 'course, lies squarely in the lap o' this government's ossinine furreign policy."
"Eh? Oh, why, ah, yes, I daresay it does," murmured the Reverend Mr. McDill, perplexed but still polite. He sat silent for a moment. "Well, I—ah—I'm rather afraid that my little visit, though most pleasant, has contributed little to the welfare of the Mavisbank Home. However, in parting, I should like to make a humble contribution to the welfare of this vessel's crew. I have found that most sailors are literally starved for reading matter, poor fellows! These old magazines and periodicals ..." he took a stack of them from his suitcase, "... Would you mind having them distributed among the brave lads in the forecastle?"
"Oh, glodly and with great guid will!" said Mr. Glencannon. "It's always a pleasure to aid in a choritable wurrk."
When the minister had gone, Mr. Glencannon went through the pile of magazines. Selecting a torn copy of the Northern Swine Breeder, he bade the steward take it forward and bestow it upon the crew with his blessing. Then, having arranged the others on the sideboard, he returned to his letter.
When supper was over that evening, Mr. Montgomery strolled to the sideboard for a toothpick and spied the magazines. "My word, 'ere's a bit o' luck!" he exclaimed. "'Ere's the larst month's issue of Beelzebub's Broth, official organ of the International League of Militant Teetotallers, of which I have the honor of being a member of! 'Oo brought orl these 'ere pypers aboard, does anybody know?"
"I know," said Mr. Glencannon. "They were brought by an elderly divine, who was endeavoring to whustle up funds for the Mavisbank Home For Aged And Infeerm Seamen."
"Oh, why that must've been the Reverend Mr. McDill, the Chairman of our Glasgow Council. 'E's an old friend of mine. But, f-f-f!" Mr. Montgomery sneered, "If 'e 'oped to whistle up any funds out of you, Mr. Glencannon, he should 'ave brought along a foghorn and a megaphone!"
"Muster Mate, I think yere remark is uncalled for and unkind," said Mr. Glencannon righteously. "As a matter of fact, the reeverend gentlemon and I passed a vurra pleasant half hour, discussing theology and looking ower the hondiwurrk o' his auld brukken-doon pensioners. But when we got aroond to the subject o' finonce and he started osking exhorbitant prices, lik' eighteen shillings for a toy ship in an empty whusky bottle, I..."
"Eighteen shillings? Only eighteen shillings—for one o' them 'andsome ship-in-a-bottle parlor ornaments? Why, that was a jolly fine bargain, if you arsk me!"
"I didn't osk ye," said Mr. Glencannon, shortly.
"Well, I'm telling you anyway," said Mr. Montgomery. "It's 'ell's own job to build one o' them things, and eighteen bob was dirt cheap. Why, it represents a week's work, at the very least!"
"A week's wurrk, foosh!" snorted Mr. Glencannon. "I cud mak' one o' the sumple little gadgets in eight or ten hours with the greatest o'ease!"
"The 'ell yer could!" scoffed Mr. Montgomery. "In fact, now look, listen, 'ere's wot I'll do with yer!—I'll bet yer five quid in good, 'ard cash that yer can't even do it between now and this time tomorrer night! Now, wot d'yer say to that?"
"Put up yere money!" cried Mr. Glencannon, producing his wallet and counting out five one pound notes. "Here, Captain Ball, I'll osk ye please to witness the bet and hold the stakes, sir!"
"Yus, Captain—you be the stake 'older and referee. Now, 'ere's the bet—let's write it down in my notebook so's there'll be no argument. Er, 'Chauncey Montgomery bets Colin Glencannon five pounds cash that Glencannon cannot build an approximate scale model of a ship'—let's say of this 'ere ship—'inside of a bottle, by seven o'clock tomorrer night. The finished ship must be in an ordinary empty whisky bottle and not some other kind of a bottle with a wide neck.'—Do yer agree to that?"
"I do!" said Mr. Glencannon. "Moreover, I'll start wurrk richt the noo. Oh, haw, haw, haw, ye puir deluded gowk! Ye micht as weel let Captain Ball hond over the money withoot further ado!"
"'E'll 'and it over when and if yer win it—which yer won't!" chuckled Mr. Montgomery.
Going aft to the poop, where the carpenter's and bosun's shops were located, Mr. Glencannon helped himself to wood, tools, glue, paint and plaster; then, descending to the engine room, he fashioned an assortment of probes, hooks and tweezers of spring steel wire. "There, noo!" he said. "All that remains is to provide an empty bottle, which I shall proceed to do in the comfort and privacy of my ain room."
Now a Duggan's bottle contains four-fifths of a quart of whisky, or enough to fill three water tumblers. Having but one tumbler available, Mr. Glencannon was obliged to fill it, drink it, fill it, drink it again and then fill it a third time before the bottle was adequately prepared. So powerful was the creative urge stirring within him that he accomplished this task with surprising rapidity. "Ah, swith!" he exclaimed, approvingly, "at this rate, I'll have the job finished in no time! Noo, let's see, let's see—what's the next step? H'm!" He slipped a pair of inside calipers down the bottle neck and then applied them to his scale. "Seeven-eighths o' an inch, scontly," he read. "That means I'll have to mak' the hull in two sections. I'll just finish up this whusky, to sharpen my intellect and steady my hond."
Swiftly, deftly and with consummate skill he drained the tumbler dry. "Dom, what progress!" he gloated. "Why, I'm sorry I didna bet him ten pounds that I'd have it finished by bedtime!" As he gauged the bottle's internal depth, it occurred to him that as the work proceeded and the ship took form, he would need another bottle from which to take measurements and to serve as a medium for checkup. Fortunately, he happened to have several more at hand, and though all were full, he was now so entirely in the spirit of his task that he emptied one of them as effortlessly as though building ship models had been his lifelong occupation. It was with pardonable pride that he reviewed the speed of his work thus far.
"Haw, why, it's proctically as guid as finished!" he applauded himself. "Ye've plenty o' time, slathers o' time, so there's no reason to owertax yersel'. Ye really must remember that e'en yere ain extrodinurra powers have a limit. Slow doon, lad—aye, relax yersel' a bit. Sit back for just a minute, do, and give yere puir taut nairves a chonce to untongle! Indeed, if I were you I'd tak' a sowp o' whusky, merely to ease the tension. Ye wud? Aye, if ye want my frank and condid opinion, I wud! Weel, alricht, then, I will, and I thonk ye most sincerely. But only a wee nip, mind—not too much—not too much! Ho, why guid losh, mon, ye've poured me a reegular Second Mate's sun-dooner! Weel—" he raised his glass politely, "as lang as ye're buying this drink, auld mon—as lang as ye've indicated yere disposition to let bygones be bygones and bury auld grudges—a-weel, as I was aboot to say, as lang as—Sh-h-h! Sh-h-h! Noo please, lad, I know ye've been drinking, but dinna interrupt me!—er—as I was aboot to remark, as lang as ye're buying this drink, bygones are bygones, as far as I'm concerned. Pairhops it's a weakness on my part, but somehow—somehow, I canna find it in my heart to harbor a grudge. I'm big-hearted, and my big heart goes oot to ye most heartily! My heart is in the richt place, laddie—dinna let them mislead ye with any song and donce to the contrary!—Song and donce? Ho, splendid! I'll sing while you donce!—Ready?
My heart is in the Hielands
My heart is richt here!
My heart is in the Hielands a-chasing the deer
Auld gir-r-r-l, they singo'—er, wait, oh yes, they
Sing-a-hi, sing-a-lee, sing-a-lo!
—That means I want to go
To Tokyo-ho-ho and a bottle o' rum!
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle o' rum!
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle o' rum!
"Yo-ho-ho and a no, no, no! Dom it mon, ye've said that three times already and it isn't rum anyway! Weel, supposing I have?—That's still no excuse for ye to yawn yo-ho-ho in my face, is it? If ye're feeling sleepy, why dinna ye go hame and sleep it off? Aye, go hame, go on hame—nobody here will miss ye? Foosh, ye've been a wet blanket on the party all evening! And another thing—if ye weren't a common boor, ye'd know enough to cover yere oogly mouth when ye're yawning! Where the heel are yere manners?"
His glass empty, he sat glowering for a moment; then, realizing that nobody seemed inclined to buy a drink, he poured one for himself. "Oh, vurra weel!" he said, loftily. "If that's the way it is, weel, that's the way it is it was!—In other wurrds, and I'm telling ye to yere face, I dinna lik' yere nosty, pairsimonious and truculent ottitude.—Foosh to ye! Foosh, foosh, foosh, I say! Do ye wish me to understond from that that ye're threatening me with physic-ick!—hic! physical violence, richt here in my ain room? Have a care, sir, have a care, I warn ye! Ach! Argh! Ho, so ye wud, wud ye? Weel, then, tak'—THAT!" With a mighty full armed swing of the bottle, he clouted himself over the head and wilted senseless to the floor.
When Mr. Glencannon opened his eyes, the light of dawn was filtering through the porthole. Rising somewhat unsteadily, he looked out and saw the giant bottle on the Duggan Warehouse silhouetted against a paling wintery sky; it served to remind him of the task in hand. "Ah, swith!" he muttered. "Why, I must have been seized with an attack of vertigo.—Losh, how my head aches!" He pressed his hand to the throbbing crown of it and was surprised to feel a lump like half a cricket ball. "Horrors, what's this—Vertigo doesna break oot in loomps! No! I was stricken with an acute attack o' owerexpansion o' the brain, provoked by turning on too much intellectual pressure! Braugh! A little more, only a little more, and my skull wud have been blown to frogments, lik' an exploding boiler! Ho, dom it, Glencannon, ye've had a miraculous escape!"
He turned to the tools and materials spread out upon his bunk, "Noo, let's see, where were we? Oh, yes; I'd just estoblished the fact that the neck o' the bottle measures approximately seven-eights o' an inch. A-weel, it's foortunate I'd made such ropid progress before illness struck me doon, because noo I can add the finishing touches at my leisure.—Strange how weak and shaky a seizure o' that sort leaves a mon! Indeed, under the caircumstances, I think I'd be omply justified in taking a mild stimulant o' some sort."
Suiting the action to the word and by it much refreshed, he fell to work in earnest, only pausing for occasional dollops of the health-giving elixir. For hour after hour, then, he toiled; but, though he made a certain amount of headway, he found himself increasingly beset with knotty problems and vexatious setbacks. Poking the tiny, glue-smeared bits of wood down the bottle neck on lengths of wire and endeavoring to fix them into place was no whit less difficult than repairing a watch while wearing boxing gloves. Perversely, the little pieces came unstuck, adhered to the sides of the bottle or even to its bottom. His fingers became sticky, then stickier, and so did his glass, until finally he was obliged to work with only one hand. It was all most fatiguing.
To make matters worse, he was not feeling well. His malady was peculiar in that it was characterized by two distinct but diametrically opposing symptoms. In plain, nonmedical language he felt as though he were drunk and had a hangover at the same time. He could account for neither condition per se and as the two together were in flat contradiction, he could only conclude that he was the victim of some new, obscure, but in any case grave affliction. As he sat wondering what he should do about it, his gaze drifted to a bottle of whisky which happened to be on the washstand at the other end of the room. "A-weel," he said, "it's a lang way off and I dinna feel lik' taking much exercise, but pairhaps a little whusky is exockly what I need. It's a Spartan reemedy, o' course, but the emeergency leaves me no choice. But—what's this? Ach! Horrors! I—I canna stond up!—I'm helpless!—I'm p-p-parolyzed! Ah, cruel heaven, what have I done to desairve a fate lik' this?" He clapped one hand to his brow and the other to his poor, useless limbs, discovering as he did so that he had sat in a puddle of glue and that the seat of his trousers was firmly cemented to the chair. The discovery eased his mind but not his situation. Although he loosened his belt and undid his buttons, his trousers and the chair had become so inseparably one that, struggle as he would, he could not work clear of them. His efforts involved much thumping, banging, and bad language. Mr. Swales, in the next room, pounded on the bulkhead. "Oh, for the love of Gord, you chaps!" he complained. "I'm trying to study!"
Mr. Glencannon was too deeply occupied to retort. At length, toppling sideways to the floor, trousers, chair and all, he succeeded in squirming his way to freedom. Battered as to body and tattered as to drawers, he took a drink and another chair and doggedly returned to work.
It was well along in the afternoon when he was ready to perform the most delicate operation of all—the raising and stepping of the masts. Now, the entire science of building ships in bottles consists in the trick by which this feat is accomplished. When the hull is inserted in the bottle, the masts are laid flat, or nearly so, their steps being grooved to the rear to permit the sticks to swing backward; the single continuous thread which will become the fore, triatic and after stays has been made fast to the stern and to both mastheads and passed through a tiny hole in the bow, its end left dangling from the bottle neck. If this has been done according to the rules of art, all that remains is to pull on the free end until the masts rise into place, to dab a drop of glue on the thread where it passes through the hole, to snip off the surplus and lo! the trick is done. In the present case, however, the thread had worked itself into the bottle and Mr. Glencannon was obliged to fish for it with his tweezers. Though he succeeded several times in nipping hold of it, it slipped from his tweezers before he could pull it out of the bottle. It was tantalizing, exasperating! At length, judging it to be within reach of his little finger, he thrust that digit down the bottle neck, pressed it firmly upon the refractory cordage and then endeavored to withdraw it. To his chagrin and dismay, he found his finger caught as in a trap.
"Ah, dom and foosheroo!" he growled, tugging until his joints cracked. "Ow! Ouch! Noo, here's a pretty kettle o' fish! There must have been some glue on my finger, or pairhops it swelled while I was groping aroond with it. A-weel," he stood up, "I'll just hold it above my head for a minute or so, to reduce the blood circulation and the swelling, and then ..."
With a resounding crash, the bottle shattered against a deckhead girder and rained in fragments upon him. For an instant he stood stunned; then red rage engulfed him and he gave it full expression.
"'Ere, 'ere, now!" Mr. Swales's voice came plaintively from the next room. "I'm going up for my Master's exams next Chewsday, and 'ow in 'ell can I study? If you chaps don't cut it out in there I'll bleddy well come in and lick the three of yer!"
Mr. Glencannon surveyed the wreckage and then consulted his watch. "Five o'clock p.m.!" he gasped. "Five o'clock—already! Two hours more and I'll be oot five pounds—unless I can accomplish a miracle!" On hands and knees he gathered up the pieces, took another bottle and went feverishly to work.
He worked like a Trojan, He worked like a horse. He worked like a horseful of Trojans.
At two minutes to seven, jaded, bloodshot, but triumphant, he staggered into the saloon. "Hoot!" he cried. "Here I am—and here it is!"
"Eh? Er, oh, yes!" said Captain Ball. "There you are, Mr. Glencannon, there you are, indeed! But, ga-hapf, I mean to say, where are they?—Your trousers, I mean!"
Mr. Glencannon ignored the question. "Here it is, Muster Montgomery! Tak' a look at it!—Aye, tak' a guid look, a five poond look—because that's exackly what it costs ye!"
Mr. Montgomery smirked and rubbed his hands. "Well, well, well!" he said, unctuously, "Wot's this yer've got—a ship in a bottle? Oh, so yer've built a ship in a bottle, 'ave yer? H'm, well, yer've made a ruddy neat job of it, I must say! Captain Ball, I'll thank you please to pay me my winnings!"
"Yere winnings?" scoffed Mr. Glencannon. "Ho, what do ye mean, yere winnings? Hoorns o' the deevil, mon, dinna ye see that it's I—I who have won the bet?"
"—You? Oh, yus? Well, now, please just listen to this!" The Mate opened his notebook, cleared his throat impressively, and read, "'The finished ship must be in an ordinary empty whisky bottle and not some other kind of a bottle with a wide neck'.—Now, did yer agree to that or didn't yer? Speak up!"
