noon
He did n't mind , he said , the trouble of punching their blanked heads down there , blank his soul , but did the condemned sailors think you could keep steam up in the God-forsaken boilers simply by knocking the blanked stokers about ? No , by George ! You had to get some draught , too -- may he be everlastingly blanked for a swab-headed deck-hand if you did n't ! And the chief , too , rampaging before the steam-gauge and carrying on like a lunatic up and down the engine-room ever since noon . What did Jukes think he was stuck up there for , if he could n't get one of his decayed , good-for-nothing deck-cripples to turn the ventilators to the wind ? The relations of the `` engine-room '' and the `` deck '' of the Nan-Shan were , as is known , of a brotherly nature ; therefore Jukes leaned over and begged the other in a restrained tone not to make a disgusting ass of himself ; the skipper was on the other side of the bridge . But the second declared mutinously that he did n't care a rap who was on the other side of the bridge , and Jukes , passing in a flash from lofty disapproval into a state of exaltation , invited him in unflattering terms to come up and twist the beastly things to please himself , and catch such wind as a donkey of his sort could find .