The builders entered
into the spirit of the game, and there she was, growing into the
clumsiest, heaviest ship of her size right before all their eyes,
without anybody becoming aware of it somehow. She was to be 2,000
tons register, or a little over; no less on any account. But see what
happens. When they came to measure her she turned out 1,999 tons and
a fraction. General consternation! And they say old Mr. Apse was so
annoyed when they told him that he took to his bed and died. The old
gentleman had retired from the firm twenty-five years before, and
was ninety-six years old if a day, so his death wasn't, perhaps, so
surprising. Still Mr. Lucian Apse was convinced that his father would
have lived to a hundred. So we may put him at the head of the list. Next
comes the poor devil of a shipwright that brute caught and squashed as
she went off the ways. They called it the launch of a ship, but I've
heard people say that, from the wailing and yelling and scrambling out
of the way, it was more like letting a devil loose upon the river.
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