Mr. Glencannon and the Masked Monster

by

Guy Gilpatric

Version 1.2

For nearly six months, the S.S. Inchcliffe Castle had been making regular runs from the Clyde to French North African ports with machinery and chemicals and then back to Glasgow with baled Tunisian esparto grass which she picked up at Sfax. Early one recent evening she lay in the Mullingraw Dock awaiting the settlement of a strike to begin unloading the bales which filled her holds to capacity and were stacked on her decks to such a height that she looked like a floating hay barn. Esparto is used in the manufacture of certain grades of paper. It smells musty and is infested with ticks.
	Fed up with the smell and with being fed upon by the ticks, Mr. Colin Glencannon, the chief engineer, decided to seek a few hours of respite ashore. His way from the water front to the bus stop on the Dumbarton Road led through West Mullingraw Street, a once-busy thoroughfare, now dark, deserted and flanked by the moldering ruins of great factories fire-blitzed during the war. Their blackened walls echoed his footfalls on the cobbles, while from within them came the eerie noises that come from all dead buildings in the night.
	"Braugh!" he shuddered, quickening his pace. "It may be only the rats, the cats or the bats, but will any o' them guarontee it in writing?" A pattering, shuffling sound came from somewhere behind him. Peering back into the gloom, he was horrified to behold a bulky, misshapen creature, somewhat like a cross between a goblin and a gorilla, capering and skipping about the roadway in a macabre rigadoon. As he watched it, spellbound, it thrashed out with its mighty arms as though engaged in combat with a ghostly adversary; it pranced backwards, leaped sidewise and straight up into the air, snorting through its nose. Despite its bulk, it moved with surprising speed and agility. Suddenly spying Mr. Glencannon, it emitted a hoarse bellow and came bounding toward him.
	It would be inaccurate to say that Mr. Glencannon's blood turned to water, for in that awful instant it was closer akin to the sub-zero liquid that circulates in the tubes of refrigerators. He turned tail and fled as though jet-propelled, the Thing loping soft-footed after him. "Ach, horrors!" he croaked. "Has some fiend from the pit come to claim me?"
	Far ahead, a lone street lamp marked the corner of the Dumbarton Road. He sped toward this beacon even as on another fearful night Tam o' Shanter and his gray mare Meg raced the witches of Kirk Alloway. Mr. Glencannon, however, was not handicapped by a horse.
	On and ever on he ran, his eldritch pursuer padding after him in the darkness. He felt its hot breath scorching his neck. Desperately, he measured the distance to the light.
	"Whurra, lad! ye'll never mak' it!" he told himself. "Any second noo, yere heart will conk oot and yere varicose veins go pop. Whoosh! Ye've no' even got wind enough to scream for help."
	Wheezing, heaving and utterly spent, he had almost resigned himself to being torn limb from limb when a voice at his shoulder said, "Easy, noo! I've got a guid sweat, so let's slow doon."
	Mr. Glencannon collapsed upon the cobbles, breathing stertorously.
	"Phew!" said the voice. "Ye gave me a nice little sprint, muster. Monny thonks for the wurrkoot!"
	Glencannon opened his eyes and forced himself to look up. He saw a loutish, ruddy face, like that of a parboiled butcher boy.
	"Duncan!" he gasped. "is it . . . you?"
	"Unh? Aye! . . . Why, hel-lo, Uncle Colin! Weel, weel, weel!"
	Mr. Glencannon rose to his feet, his fists clenched and his brows knotted in a scowl. "Ho, foosh and for shame, ye great, hulking lump! he thundered. "Here it's the feerst time we've met since before the war, and the best ye can do is chivvy me through the streets lik' the Stog at Bay! What do ye mean by it . . . and why aren't ye at sea, procticing yere honorable profession?"
	Duncan Glencannon pushed back his cap from his dripping forehead, ran his forefinger around the turtle neck of his sweater and shrugged his massive shoulders within his three sweat shirts and jacket.
	"Why am I no' at sea? Hunh!" he grunted. "Why, sumply because the Board o' Trade tuk awa' my certificate in Nineteen Theerty-eight and I canna get a theerd engineer's berth withoot it. Luckily, during the war I sairved in the Commandos, where they gave me a special course in how to strongle Huns with either hond. Ever since I got demobbed, I've been putting my militurra training to use as a wrestler."
	"A . . . wrestler?" Mr. Glencannon sniffed. "Weel, ye always were a muscular young booby, particularly in the head. But I still dinna ken what ye were doncing and proncing aboot in the street for, and what was yere idea in chasing me."
	"I'm oot doing my daily stint o' road wurrk," Duncan explained. "I was only chasing you because I thocht ye were pacing me. Noturally, I didna reecognize ye."
	"Hm'ph! Why don't ye do yere training in the daytime in Kelvin Grove Park, lik' all the respectable bruisers?"
	Duncan winked mysteriously. "Because I have to train in secret, where the public canna see me. It's all part o' the build-up." He expanded his chest and thumped it resoundingly. "Uncle Colin, I hoppen to be none other more nor less than the celebrated Mosked Munster!" He stepped back a pace and bowed.
	"The Mosked Munster?" Mr. Glencannon repeated the name blankly. "Weel, aside from you being him and him being you, who the heel is he?"
	"Swith, dinna ye read the papers" He's Scotland's Mighty Mysturra Mauler, the Rising Star o' the Wrestling Ring, the Roughest, Toughest Groppler since Hercules and Hackenschmidt, that's who!" Duncan pounded his chest again. "If ye dinna believe me, just drap aroond to the Caledonian Sports Arena tomorra nicht and see what I do to Earthquake Garfunkel, The Brooklyn Bulldozer, in the main bout!"
	Mr. Glencannon shook his head. "I'm afraid I cudna dignify the brutal exhibition with my presence. However, just to humor ye, I'll stop in at yere dressing room afterward and collect the twenty quid ye've owed me since Nineteen Theerty-six."
	"Unh? Twenty quid? . . . Hunh?" Duncan's face clouded. "Oh, noo, see here, Uncle Colin, dinna be unreasonable. I'm getting only ten poonds for the motch! But after I win it I'll be making big money, and -- er ---- Wait" -- he snapped his fingers -- "I've got an idea!"
	"Weel, dinna sprain yersel' on it, said Mr. Glencannon sourly. "Ye can tell me aboot it while we're finding the nearest pub."
	"Richt!" said Duncan, falling into step beside him. "Noo listen, Uncle Colin. I'm absolutely certain o' winning tomorra nicht. Why, I cud balance a piano on my head and lick Faarfunkel at the same time, but just to mak' sure o' the bets, tomorra's motch is fixed."
	"Fixed? Ye mean it's cruckid?"
	"Aye! Muster Daninos, the promoter, has ordered Garfunkel to let me knock him oot any time after the second fall. Why, ye can clean up a foortune by betting on me, Uncle Colin!"
	"Oh, ho! So yere idea is to settle yere debt to me by letting me in on this sure thing, eh? H'm!" said Mr. Glencannon thoughtfully.  "Weel, I am opposed to gombling in all its forms, but as lang as this is a pure swundle, with no taint o' gombling whatsoever, I feel I can tak' advontage o' it withoot in any way violating my prunciples. How shud I go aboot placing my bets, Duncan?"
	"I'll give ye a list o' the bookies' runners and the pubs they hong oot in. But o' coorse, Uncle Colin, ye must be sure to use a fake name. Muster Daninos is letting a few o' his friends in on it, but if he ever suspected I'd tipped off an ootsider -- weel, my career wud be ruined!"
	"Tush, lad, never fear!" said Mr. Glencannon with dignity. "D'ye think a spoorstmon o' my chorocter and stonding wud care to reveal himsel' as the uncle o' a professional athlete?"

	By nine o'clock the following evening, Mr. Glencannon had completed a round of the pubs on Duncan's list and transacted his business with a succession of shifty-eyed characters named Joe. He had wagered twenty-eight pounds and, though not superstitious, he had been careful to drink a goodluck toast to each and every one of them. He was about to drink a twenty-ninth for the sheer sport of it when he realized that it was time to start for the wrestling matches.
	"Pairdon me, mum, but how do I get to the Caledonian Sports Arena?" he inquired of the barmaid.
	"Go oot, turn to yere richt and follow the trom line to Dundas Street," she directed.
	He tipped her lavishly with a handful of potato chips and hobbled, clattering, toward the door. Fortunately, the brass spittoon which he was wearing on his left foot dropped off before he reached it. Gratefully inhaling the chill night air and exhaling it as superheated rocket fuel, he strode briskly down the street. A tram car met him face to face and came to a halt in the nick of time, its bell clanging stridently. After a spirited argument with the driver and passengers as to who had the right of way, he was persuaded by a policeman to proceed upon the sidewalk.
	From within the brightly lighted portals of the Caledonian Arena came dull thuds, savage howls, rasping grunts, bestial snarls, agonized screams and ghoulish shrieks, punctuated at frequent intervals by the roar of an infuriated mob.
	"Ah, losh!" he murmured. "If I didna ken what was octually going on inside, I'd be inclined to osk what time Muster Mulitoff was scheduled to speak . . . Give me a front row ringside seat down front in the front row at the ringside," he bade the man in the ticket booth.
	As he passed into the smoke-filled arena and was ushered to his seat, the announcer was introducing a revolting specimen of Pithecanthropus erectus called Yuzzuf Bey, the Turkish Torturer, and a furtive, bandy-legged Irishman described simply as The Liverpool Rat. The Moslem prostrated himself devoutly in what he thought was the direction of Mecca, but actually was that of Manchester, and then opened the bout in sportsmanlike fashion by attempting to twist the Ratt's left arm off. The Rat broke the hold by kicking him in the Adam's apple. Yuzzuf gasped and gagged, the audience stamped and howled, and Mr. Glencannon dropped peacefully off to sleep.
	He had slumbered through two boisterous bouts and outsnored an interlude of bagpipe music rendered in the interests of a local veterans' charity, when he was awakened by a piercing scream of bafflement and rage. The voice was disturbingly familiar. Opening his eyes, he saw that the screamer, whose head was sheathed in a tight-fitting black mask, but who otherwise resembled a sixty-gallon petrol drum with carrot-colored hair sprouting out of it, was being swung through the air in dizzying circles by a swarthy giant who grasped him by the ankles. At the twentieth revolution, the swarthy giant let go. The Masked Monster went soaring head first over the ropes.
	There was a seismic shock, a shattering crash, followed by a moment of awe-filled silence; then the house lights blazed on, and through the clouds of tobacco smoke the horrified audience saw at the ringside a tangled heap composed of the Masked Monster, Mr. Glencannon and the fragments of his chair. Even as they watched, the Monster stirred, shook his head stupidly and glared up at the ring. Earthquake Garfunkel was strutting around it, shaking his clasped hands above his head. Duncan seized a chair leg, sprang bellowing through the ropes, and with a mighty clout laid his betrayer low. He was just starting for the referee when a policeman came pounding down the aisle, truncheon unlimbered for the fray. As he clambered up onto the canvas, the chair leg smote him resoundingly on the helmet and he went down, stern first. Pandemonium not only reigned, it poured.

	When Mr. Glencannon regained consciousness, he was lying on a bench in a room that smelled of perspiration and liniment. As he remembered what had happened to him, financially as well as physically, red rage flooded his soul.
	Domn, he thought. Ye've been dooble-crossed. Duped. Come, Glencannon; ye must gird up yere loins and dupe the dooble-crosser, whoever he turns oot to be. Warily, from under lowered lids, he watched a doctor putting a stethoscope away in a bag while a beady-eyed, black-mustached little man in a dinner jacket paced nervously back and forth, studying an insurance policy.
	"No," the doctor was saying, "there are no bones broken, but of course there may be internal injuries. Can't say until he sobers up. . . . Does your policy cover you in accidents of this sort, Mr. Daninos?"
	The promoter pressed his hands to his sleek, pomaded head in a tragic gesture. "It doesn't, damn it!" he said, with a trace of a foreign accent. "My only hope is that he's so drunk I can talk him into signing a release form before he realises he can sue me. . . . Sh! He's opening his eyes. You'd better clear out, doctor! . . . Oh, my dear Captain Ball!" He leaned over Mr. Glencannon solicitously. "I cannot begin to tell you how much I regret this unfor----
	Mr. Glencannon sat up with a jerk, his brows beetling. "Eh? How does it hoppen that ye hoppen to know my name?" he demanded.
	Mr. Daninos' ophidian eyes shifted slightly. "Oh -- er -- I believe some chap named Joe identified you. Said he'd met you in a bar this evening. By the way, my name's Daninos. As I was saying, captain, I can't begin to tell you how much I regret ----"
	"Foosh! Ye'll regret it a mullion times more than merely much, I promise ye that!" Mr. Glencannon roared. "By the time I've drogged ye through the law courts and sued ye oot o' every last farthing ye've got on yere back, ye'll lairn it's a vurra costly business to encourage yere brutal thugs to go crippling decent people!"
	"Oh, now, captain, please be reasonable! I know perfectly well you could sue me, but I believe we can arrange it much more satisfactorily between ourselves. Come, my car is outside. Let's drop around to a night club, knock back a friendly drink or two and ----"
	"Stop! How dare ye?" Mr. Glencannon interrupted him. "Here I am, writhing in agony with serious inteernal injuries -- ouch! -- and yet ye've got the brazen audocity to suggest that I go boozing with ye in some disreputable shebeen! Ye'll hear from my lawyers in due course, sir; meanwhile, pairmit me to bid ye a vurra guid evening."
	Mr. Daninos hastened to restrain him. "Oh, my dear fellow, at least let me take you wherever you are going in my car!"
	"M'm -- ouch! -- I -- I'm afraid I have no choice," the sufferer acquiesced. "At least, it will save me my toxicob fare."
	As they drove through the outskirts of Glasgow and headed down the fog-shrouded riverside, the promoter unleashed his most persuasive eloquence in an effort to settle the case out of court. His offer of ten pounds was received in sullen silence. He went up to fifteen, with like result. Even his bid of twenty pounds and a season pass to the Caledonian Sports Arena was rejected with a hollow groan.
	They drove past the ruins of the Great Northern Marine Boiler Works to the Mullingraw Dock. With her deck cargo of bales, the S.S. Inchcliffe Castle loomed in the midnight mist like Noah's Ark.
	"Weel, here we -- ouch! --are," announced Mr. Glencannon, clutching at his side. "I -- I'm afraid I'll have to osk ye to help me up the gongplonk, though."
	"Yes, yes, by all means! Please take my arm, captain. . . . F'mff? Mr. Daninos sniffed the air questioningly. "F'mff? That musty smell! By George, I'd almost be willing to bet there's some Tunisian esparto grass around here somewhere!"
	"Weel, if yere eyes were as sharp as yere nose, ye'd see ye're stonding face to face with an entire shipload o' it. We've just brocht it here from Sf-ic! Sf-oc! Sfax."
	"Sfax" Well, I'll be damned!" the other exclaimed. "Captain, this is really a most extraordinary coincidence! Believe it or not, I was born and brought up in Sfax."
	"No! Is that a Sfax?" said Mr. Glencannon acidly.
	Mr. Daninos suppressed a shudder.
	They halted at the head of the gangway while he surveryed the bales piled on the fore and after well decks. "My word, captain, you do carry a lot of it! Are the holds full too?"
	"Aye, clear up to the hatch covers. And as soon as it's unloaded, we'll go richt back to Sfax for more o' the fulthy stuff."
	"Oh, you will? H'm!" Mr. Daninos stroked his mustache with the tip of his yellow-gloved forefinger. For a long moment he stood silent in thought; then, "Now, see here, my friend," he said inpressively; "let's cut out all this petty haggling and sparring. I've just had an idea by which I think both of us can make money. I don't mean a few paltry pounds; I mean a real packet! Of course, if you're still of a mind to sue me, I'll say good night and take my idea elsewhere. Well" -- he paused -- are you interested?"
	Without a word, Mr. Glencannon led the way to his room, opened the door and switched on the light. "Sit doon and mak' yersel' comfortable, Muster Daninos."
	"Thank you," said the other. Before shedding his topcoat, he took a bottle from the pocket and stood it on the washstand. "I brought it along in case you felt faint," he explained with a wink.
	Mr. Glencannon filled a tumbler to the rim and held it up to the light. "Exockly what is this beeverage? he inquired.
	"That," said Mr. Daninos unctuously -- "that, captain, is Duggan's Dew of Kirkintilloch, distilled nine years before the first World War. It is the very finest whisky the black market affords."
	"Odd!" Mr. Glencannon commented. "I always thoct whisky had bubbles in it. Ah, weel, live and lairn! But ye were abbout to talk aboot money," he reminded brusquely.
	"Ah, yes, quite." Mr. Daninos rubbed his hands. "I hope you'll forgive me if I begin with a few words about myself and my brother. Er -- in addition to my sports promotions, I have interests in the night-club, used-car and cash-loan businesses here in Glasgow. My brother, Ahmed Daninos, is in business in Sfax. Like myself, he is a man of varied interests. Well, when the American Army withdrew from Tunisia, leaving only a few officers and men to dispose of their matériel, Ahmed managed to -- er -- acquire vast quantities of their cigarettes. The bulk of them still remains in his warehouse in Sfax, begging -- yes, begging, Captain Ball -- to be sold at a decent profit here in the British black market. Until now, the problem has been how to get them here."
	"And yere idea, o' coorse, is to smooggle them in esparto bales. A-weel" -- Mr. Glencannon took a mouthful of whisky and swashed it around with his tongue -- "I can see no reason why it cudna be done. If yere brother cud deliver the bales on the wharf at Sfax withoot interference from the French authorities, I'd see that they got stowed aboard in a safe and suitable place."
	"Could you? Ha! That's what I was hoping! But what about the customs inspectors here in Glasgow? Can they be fixed?
	"No, and ordinurrila, they're vurra nosy and obnuxious. But they never pay the slichtest attention to esparto cargoes, because esparto itsel' is duty free and they know there's nothing produced in all o' Tunisia that's wurrth smoogling inside the bales."
	"Ah, precisely! About how many bales do you think you could handle, Captain Ball?"
	"Weel, to be pairfickly safe, let's say ten."
	"H'm! They measure about four feet square by seven feet long, don't they? Well, now, let's see." Mr. Daninos jotted some calculations in his notebook. "Allowing for a good, safe thickness of grass outside, I figure those ten bales would contain approximately twelve thosand, five hundred poounds' worth of merchandise! Whew!"
	"Whew!" Mr. Glencannon echoed his gasp. "Whew, indeed! It's a stoggering sum! It's -- it's colussal!" With trembling hands, he poured another drink. "Mr. Daninos, I'm afraid ye'll have to count me oot, after all. As ye dootless know, some vurra desperate chorocters lurk alang the water front in Sfax. If wurrd o' the shipment were to leak oot and a gong o' the bondits decided to hijock it with tummy guns, my life wudna be wurrth a pin's forfeit!"
	Mr. Daninos smiled a cunning smile. "Oh, don't worry, my dear fellow; I'd already thought of that! Naturally, I'd provide a bodyguard -- to protect my own interests as well as your hide! I happen to have a number of -- er -- associates in my -- er -- organization who know how to handle such jobs. That Masked Monster chap, for example."
	"The . . . Mosked Muster?" Mr. glencannon was unable to conceal his sruprise.
	Yes. Yeou see, he had the bad judnment to slug a policeman this evening, and there's hell's own fuss about it. I've got him safely hidden, for the moment, but I know he'll welcome a bit of a sea trip until the hue and cry dies down. Glencannon, his name is."
	Mr. Glencannon frowned and chewed the overhang of his walrus mustache thoughtfully. "A-weel, it's an ugly name and I'd rather ye'd send Garfunkel, but suit yersel'. We'd have to sign him on as a member o' the crew, but that cud be arranged. Oh, and that reminds me -- the mates, the bos'n and two or three others wud have to be bribed, but if ye slipped me a hundred quid, I'd guarontee to grease the lot. For obvious reasons, it wud be wiser for ye no' to come aboard here again."
	"Yes, I quite see your point. But now, captain, what about your own cut, eh?"
	Mr. Glencannon looked down at his feet and shuffled them embarrassedly. "Losh, I -- I hardly know what to say! After all, the idea is yere ain and the cigarettes are yere brother's. My sole respunsibility will be getting them on the ship. How much do ye think wud be fair, Muster Daninos?"
	"Well, what would you say to a hundred quid the day you leave Glasgow and two hundred more which I'll deposit to your bank account as soon as my brother wires me that the shipment has left Sfax?"
	"I'd say it was more than sotisfocturra, sir. It's -- it's vurra, vurra hondsome indeed!"
	"Not at all, old boy -- not all all! . . . Well, this little discussion has covered quite a bit of ground, hasn't it? If you'll be at my office at the Arena at ten in the morning, I'll have some of my key men there. We'll start working out the details and get off a preliminary air-mail letter to my brother." He rose, put on his coat and extended a limp and clammy hand. "Well, good night, partner!" he said jovially. "I'll leave that bottle with you . . . in case you feel faint, y'know! Ha-ha-ha!"
	Mr. Glencannon accompanied him to the gangplank and stood watching the lights of the car until they disappeared. Then he took a sheaf of bookmakers' receipts from his pocket, tore them into fragments and sent them flutting down into the Clyde. "Twenty-eight quid!" he muttered. "Cast lik' bread upon the waters!"

	The midnight moon soared slowly westward across the African sky. Faintly, from somewhere in the maze of streets in the Arab quarter, a drum thumped, cymbals clashed and voices howled an interminable three-note cacophony. Nearer, in the tawdry French boítes along the Rue de la Republique, pianos, saxophones and trumpets gave off what was intended to be le jazz hot, but actually was le schmaltz sour. The rest of the ancient, chalk-white city of Sfax sprawled sleeping in the moonlight.
	Down in the port, however, the Quai Ain Halib was a scene of turmoil as the S.S. Inchcliffe Castle prepared to put to sea. Floodlights glared, steam hissed, winches chattered and stevedores yelled in French, Arabic and Italian as the few remaining esparto bales were jerked up in the slings and swung inboard by the derricks. But all this activity was confined to the forward part of the ship. Her afterdeck was already loaded and therefore dark and quiet.
	Mr. Montgomery, the mate, made his way along it through the narrow passage between the bales and the bulwark, and ascended to the poop. He found Mr. Glencannon leaning with his elbows on the rail, peering anxiously toward the shadowy entrance of the Rue Zous-el-Souk.
	"See 'ere, you, it's getting late," Mr. Montgomery whispered. "The pilot's aboard and we're pretty near set to shove off. I've left the two arfter rows empty for yer bales, but where the 'ell are they?"
	Mr. Glencannon looked at his watch. "They'll be here at any minute," he said. "In fact ---- Aye, look yon!" From the narrow black mouth of the street directly opposite came a motorcar, then two covered trucks and then another car. Mr. Glencannon's flashlight winked twice. There was an answering signal from the leading car. With military precision, the little convoy rolled alongside the ship and came to a stop directly below where the pair were waiting.
	"Stond by to hondle the bales," Mr. Glencannon ordered. "I'm going doon to check them with Duncan."
	By the time he reached the quay, Arabs in tarbooshes and dungarees had sprung from the trucks and were unloading bales along the edge of it. As he walked past the vehicles, he heard the faint, menacing click of automatic-carbine safeties being released.
	Their task finished, the Arabs swung aboard the trucks, and the convoy rolled away as swiftly and silently as it had come.
	"Haw! All set, Muster Montgomery!" Mr. Glencannon waved his hand. "Get the sling doon here and we'll -- er -- er ----"
	A pair of customs guards emerged from the shadow of a pile of wine barrels and approached with measured tread. In the nocturnal manner of all French policemen, they were peering about them with elaborate suspicion and muttering melodramatically in fierce Corsican accents. Mustachios bristling, they halted squarely before Mr. Glencannon, tossed their capes back over their shoulders, and eyed him from fead to foot.
	"Pardon, meestar," said one of them. "Is it that you speak English?"
	"Aye, I speak it lik' a Rogue's Scholar." Mr. Glencannon fumbled in his pocket for his brass knuckles, only to discover that he had forgotten them. "What shall we talk aboot, moonseer?"
	About these ballots d'esparto which 'ave just now arrive. It must that we examine them."
	"Exomine them? Exomine them why?"
	"We do not know for why. This is for why we must examine them." He motioned to his colleague, advanced to the nearest bale and commenced tearing handfuls of grass from it.
	"Noo, wait a minute!" Mr. Glencannon protested. "If ye think I'm going to stond here and let ye scatter my brond-new espart gross all ower the wharf, ye're sodly mistaken. I"ll ----"
	"Shut your mouth!" snapped the other in French, snatching out his pistol and pressing it against Mr. Glencannon's abdomen.
	"Duncan!" Mr. Glencannon's voice was the merest croak, but the response was instantaneous. Snarling like the behemoth of Holy Writ, his nephew leaped out of the shadows, clutched a guard's crossbelt with each hand and bashed the hapless fellows together with an atom-splitting impact. Bang! Whop! Thud! He repeated the process as rapidly as he could pull them apart and thump them together again.
	"Haw! Guid lad!" Mr. Glencannon slapped his nephew's bulging shoulder as a farmer might slap that of a faithful ox. "Drog them into yon shed and then hurry aboard. . . . All richt, Muster Montgomery!" he called to the mate. "Lower the sling, send doon yere men and we'll get this stuff loaded in three shakes o' a jiffick!"

	Next morning, as the Inchcliffe Castle was snouting her way through the sapphire sea between Cape Bon and Pantelleria, Mr. Glencannon stood in the sunshine on deck, counting his blessing and his bales. Presently, he was joined by Mr. Montgomery and Duncan.
	"Welp, I got 'em aboard and stowed exackly like you wanted, didn't I?" smirked the mate, obviously pleased with himself. "Neither Captain Ball nor nobody else suspects even so much as a thing, neither. So now, me bucko, 'ow about 'anding over the five quid you promised me for my cooperation?"
	"I'll pay ye exockly when and where I said I wud, Muster Montogomery -- in other wurrds, as soon as we put the bales ashore at Rotterdam."
	"Rotterdam? Hunh?" Duncan Glencannon's beefy face gaped open incredulously. "Why, I -- I thocht we were going back to Glasgow, Uncle Colin!"
	"Haw! And so, apparently, did our clever friend, Muster Dooble-Crossing Daninos," Mr. Glencannon chuckled. "At any rate, he didna trooble to osk!"

THE END

Published in The Saturday Evening Post
November 22,1947