In just such compartments Mr.
McFee has written for years, and expected to finish that night (in
the two hours each day that he is able to devote to writing) his
tale, "Captain Macedoine's Daughter." As we talked there was a
constant procession of in-comers, most of them seeming to the opaque
observation of the layman to be firemen discussing matters of
overtime. On the desk lay an amusing memorandum, which the Chief
referred to jocularly as one of Mac's "works," anent some problem
of whether the donkeyman was due certain overtime on a Sunday when
the _Turrialba_ lay in Hampton Roads waiting for coal. On the cabin
door was a carefully typed list marked in Mr. McFee's hand "Work to
Do." It began something like this:
_Main Engine Pump-Link Brasses
Fill Up Main Engine Feed Pump and Bilge Rams
Open and Scale After Port Boiler
Main Circulator Impeller to Examine
Hydrokineter Valve on Centre Boiler to be Rejointed_
The delightful thing about Mr. McFee is that he can turn from these
things, which he knows and loves, to talk about literary problems,
and can out-talk most literary critics at their own game.
He took us through his shining engines, showing us some of the
beauty spots--the Weir pumps and the refrigerating machinery and the
thrust-blocks (we hope we have these right), unconsciously
inflicting upon us something of the pain it gives the bungling jack
of several trades when he sees a man who is so fine a master not
merely of one, but of two--two seemingly diverse, but in which the
spirit of faith and service are the same.
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