1929-12-13 — Page 47

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China Mail.

DROL

Christmas Supplement 1929.

HONG KONG, SATURDAY,

DECEMBER 14, 1929.

A. SANTA CLAUS OF BLUE WATER

By FRANK H. SHAW

Thy, it's old Daddy Christmas again!" guffawed Captain Loxley, and other cccupants of the captains' room at the Port of Call joined him in merriment. Loxley made an exaggerated bow to the address of the newest comer, and greeted him. "Santa Claus, I presume?"

"No, sir; why, no, sir-Cap'n Billy Bobstay, that's me, sir," responded the white-bearded, white-haired entrant. "Of the s.s. Mercury, as you'll likely remember." Among the smart youngish men the oldster seemed shabby and inefficient. His clothes, nautical in cut, belonged to a bygone generation, when men were not afraid to advertise their connection with the sea to all who chanced their way. In every way he

lacked smartness. His hands were scaly at the back, and so bent that they seemed ever- lastingly to be gripping a rope.

This isn't the place for a no-sailor old fossil that doesn't know the first thing about his job. Whom did you serve your time with, anyway, Noah?" He took hold of the flow- ing white beard and sneeringly shook it. "Put a red dressing-gown on, and tie some holly round your head and pretend you're Father Christmas; that's about all you're fit for," he advised.

Like The Accepted Picture The old veteran did, indeed, look re markably like the accepted picture of the Christmas saint. Robbed in red, with cot- tonwool draped about him and a Christmas tree in his arm, and a bag of toys on his contrast with the spruce young fellows who back, he would have been perfection. By commanded crack liners, he showed as an anachronism.

Gavin, of the Tyburn Tree.

"Oh, let him alone, Loxley!" protested "Likely enough he was seafaring before you were thought of."

"Yes; I remember," said Loxley, and collected, the eyes of his associates. "You're the old fossil who slumped his ash-cart of a dirty tramp clean to windward of me and started discharging coal just when we'd

Then he hasn't learned his job." Every white-painted all the superstructure. A one knew that Loxley, although they had devil of a no-sailor-like job that was.” The given him command of the Hyacinth, was cld man's manner became more deprecating a bit big for his boots. He was a man who than ever as Loxley's voice rose to a rasp. Faid great attention to the social side of He seemed totally out of place in the cap romantic ladies who made passage in the seafaring. He was considerably liked by -tains' room. "Don't you think you'd be

better in the public bar?" asked Loxley, liner, for he had an imposing presence, and insultingly.

his manners, with them, were perfect. He could tell a good story, generally dealing with his own prowess. He posed as being the complete Beau Brummel of deep water the dignity of the merchant marine should a man who was loud in his protests that be maintained ashore and afloat.

"Why, sir, that's as may be; but when I mentioned to the young lady out there that I was a passed master-mariner, sir, she just sort of naturally sent me in here. Might

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I ask the company to name its likes-

"I don't drink with every freighting- skipper!" said Loxley, a sneer in his tone. The old man flushed.

A "Small Mischance"

Old, Pathetic Figure Captain Bobstay. bowed with clumsy grace to Captain Gavin, and disengaged his "I hope there'll be no offence about that beard from the insulting hand. "Thankee, small mischance, sir," he pleaded. "Theysir, thankee, young sir!" he chirupped cheer told me to go to that berth, so I just went. fully. "But, seeing that I'm not welcome And the dockmaster did say that your fine here, I'll just make myself scarce!" And ship, sir, wasn't where it belonged."

be left the room, an old, pathetic figure, "She was where I chose to put her, who was a full generation behind the times. Anyone that pretends to be a sailor ought "What's the good of trying to keep up to have known.”

the status of the cloth when you get old "But I didn't know that you were new-has-beens like that letting you down at painted, captain, and, orders being orders, I just obeyed them."

As some of the smart youngsters laugh- ed at that Captain Loxley waxed angry. He strode up to Captain Bobstay and shook a finger in his face. "Why don't you go away?" he asked in an intolerant voice. “We don't want you here, that I can see.

every turn?" demanded Loxley intolerantly when the door had swung to. He surveyed himself approvingly in a near-by mirror, settled his tie, and sleeked his sleek hair He smirked at the tow-headed barmaid, who had watched Captain Bobstay's exit some- what pityingly. "What do you think the old fossil did? He brought his old ash-can

of a filthy freighter alongside me in dock, scraped my paint-

"I saw that," mentioned Grant, of the Kohinoor. It was when the tow-rope parted-and it was the tug's own rope; 30 you couldn't blame the master of the ship for that."

Devil's Own Mess

"Well, he made a devil's own mess; and then he started unloading his filthy new white paint!" roared Loxley; "and can so that every bucketful drifted across my you imagine what Captain Digby had to say when he came aboard and found us smother- ed in muck?" He fumed on, and then said; "Come and have a drink, all you fellows, because it was the fashion of the port to anyway." They accepted the invitation, keep on good terms with Harold Loxley, who, men said, would go ahead like smoke. was already spoken of as the future marine superintendent of the Flower Line, although he was as young as he was, and marine superintendents, whether actual or potential, are men with whom it is well to keep in favour.

He

"When are you sailing?" Gavin wanted to know over the tumblers.

"To-morrow; and getting backfor picking up a whole shoot of folks coming Christmas, which is one good thing. We're home for Christmas, so we'll be a full ship. You can't get away from it, Gavin, the Hyacinth's popular. We always skim the cream of the passenger traffic."

Flower Line Lucky!

was restored, as he thought of his own

Gradually Loxley's self-complacency

magnificence, and his associates praised his ship and covertly himself. He studied his good-looking reflection in the mirror many times, and decided that the Flower Line was uncommonly lucky in getting such a figure as himself to command their ship. It was quite true that the Hyacinth wasn't quadruple screwed, twenty-five knot flier- a ship that made the Atlantic crossing in five days without troubling any more about the hardest weather than if it was a zephyr.- but she was a fine ship, and one that yeu could trust. She was especially constructed! for a social side of seafaring, with hand some accommodation; and, though ther were some who thought the Flower Lin might have spent more on their engine rooms and hulls generally and less. antique oak fittings and Persian carpet. they were jealous people who had not tained command in the line at an almos phenomenally early age.