"She is an Island trader," corrected Ewing with dignity.
"Humph," replied Ching. "A ton or two of frippery doesn't turn a yacht into a ship. We are a rich man's toy, and don't count for much on the high seas. Our burgee and Blue Ensign look consequential at Auckland, but an ancient Island schooner would make more stir in the Straits."
"Wait till they see our engine-room," cried Ewing. "There's nothing like it outside the King's Navy."
"Humph," replied Ching again. "They wouldn't look at our engine-room if there was a dirty craft alongside which would load up their copra and _beche de mer_. Trade must run both ways to be taken seriously. I take it that we are not going to carry copra to the English soap boilers or smoked sea slugs for the Chinese soup market. And if we don't do both the Island trade has no use for us and no interest in us."
"You make us feel humble," said Madame, smiling. "I had become proud of the _Humming Top_."
"She's a fine craft, but a yacht isn't a real ship, Madame."
"She was a real enough ship when you and I ran her in at seventeen knots under the guns at Zeebrugge to pick up the Navy boys in the watter," shouted Ewing.
"That was another Service," returned Ching stolidly. "She was a ship then. Now she's a yacht. I'm proud to command her now, as I was then; but I want to make you see that as a yacht she has no status on the seas. If pilots are scarce we shall have no call on one. We've got to run our own risks by ourselves and to make them as small as we know how. Is that clear?"
"As crystal," said Madame. "Also humiliating. And I thought I was rather a swell cruising about the world in a yacht which was practically my own."
"You always would be a swell anywhere," said Ching politely. "But on the high seas the mistress of a yacht doesn't count for a row of beans."
"Don't heed him, Madame," cried Ewing. "He's only a demobbed Commander R.N.R. Your friend Alexander Ewing will stick up for you. I was an Engineer Lieutenant, and the engine-room ranks much higher than the bridge nowadays, though it may not sport so many rows of gold lace. It is my deliberate opeenion, arrived at by careful consideration of all the circumstances, and after giving full weight to the observations of my commanding officer, that we shall get on quite nicely without a pilot, thank you. I am not exactly what you could call an experienced navigator, but give me a well-found vessel of light draught, with six inches of teak fender to her hinder end, a diligent crew heaving the lead at discreet intervals, all the eyes on the bridge looking sprightly for promiscuous breakers, and I would con the _Humming Top_ myself. The mair especially if I could be in two places at once and be in chairge of my bonny engines at the same time as I strolled majestically about the bridge. There is no real deeficulty about navigation, Madame. Yon's not like to the management of high-speed geared turbines. Yon's child's wor-r-k with Admiralty charts spread about ye. But since I cannot be, like the fabulous bir-r-d, in the two places at once, I will leave the bridge to our deefident friend Ching. Go ahead, dead slow, among the prickly reefs, and if you should just butt on the ground give the wor-r-d to me by the engine-room telegraph and I will whip her off on the revairse. That is the grand advantage of geared turbines, Madame. One has the full power on the revairse. What did you go for to put teak to the bottom of us, Ching, if you didna expect to find a use for it?"