The Opelousas courier., 1898-09-03

AAA is saying a goo
M8EA deal when the col
%ze-A block" was Capital.
So Matt Hanford. H
was as good a man as ever walked
deck-short. thick-set, with a copper
red tint to his w~ell-seasoned face, an,
a pair of small, twinkling gray eyes
Billy was a reduced copy Of his father
It was hard to tell which Of tkem id
mired the other most.
Captain Matt was the sailing maste
of the Sea Conch, a stanch sailing
yacht built for racing and owned by
wealthy young New Yorker. He
owner meant to take her over to tn
Isle of Wight and race the Prince O
Wales's Britannia, the German EN-
peror's Meteor, O any of the smar
English cutters that wanted to try con
illusions with a Yankee keel.
Captain Matt had promised Bill,
that if he came out at the head of hi
class at school he would take hin
along. Billy came out ahead. HI
would have done SO in any case, for hi
wasn't going to let any boy find gu,
more things than he did.
It isn't every boy that has a chance
to go to Europe when he is fourteen.
But no boy ever enjoyed a trip there
more than Billy Hanford. The Sea
Conch got beaten in the races; that
was the only drawback to the trip.
Billy was convinced that the reason OF
this was that the owner of the yacht
sailed her himself IN the race. If his
father had handled the boat, the other
yachts would have been nowhere-so
Billy firmly believed.
The young owner of the Sea Conch
told Captain Matt that he could run up
to London for two or three days be-
fore he took the yacht back. This was
some consolation to Billy. He was
going to see the biggest town in the
world!
He was bound not to admit that it
was much better than New York. OF
course, it was bigger. But look how
much longer it had been growing! The
buildings in New York were a good
deal higher than anything they could
show in London. Hyde Park wasn't
anywhere beside Central Park.
One day Captain Matt took his son
to visit the docks. The boy looked
around IN the hundreds Of acres of
massive cut-stone piers with great
lakes Of water between them and said
nothing. The Brooklyn Navy Yard
compared to these immense docks was
like a duck pond.
Chilly, these docks cost hundreds
of thousands of pounds" said the
Captain to his son, impressively.
"Two hundred thousand pounds is
pretty nearly a million dollars" re-
marked that young hopeful, as if to
warn his father not to use figures
recklessly.
"WelI, Billy" replied his father,
grimly, zone Of them, the London
Decks, cost four million pounds.
Pounds" he repeated. "Figger that
out. And they aren't half as big as
these West India Docks we're going
to. And the Victory and Albert Docks
are over two miles long, and all lit
up with electricity. And they've got
a machine that just hoists a vessel
up in the air, willie they clean
her. What do you think Of that?"
"Oh, they're big" answered Billy.
When he couldn't think Of anything
in America which was better than
what he saw in London he kept pretty
quiet. But this was through no lack
of appreciation. He enjoyed seeing
these wonders thoroughly, only he
an out and out American who
loved his own great country.
But when they got to the Docks
where Captain Matt hoped to find the
Peal Of India, or which was an old
sea friend Of his, they. could see next
to nothing. A real London fog had
wrapped everything in its mighty
folds.
Here Billy could say with truth
that they didn't have anything in New
York which was one-tenth as bad. |
There is not a good word can be said
a London fog-one of the real,
thick, ugly kind. It is impossible to
do it justice. You have to experience
one before you can realize how bad it
is. It is a mist thick enough to out
yello Y, or gray, or black, with q
smell like SCOT. It gets into the eyes
and makes them smart till the tears
come. It rasps your throat to raw
ness when you breathe it in. Objects
across the street can hardly be seen.
The lamps in the streets, in the
and on the cabs are all lit, but
they srs smothered aud show only
title, sickly yellow spots of light.
This kind CT fog, one of the worst
hat London had seen for fifteen
years, settled down on the West India
and swallowed up Captain
Matt and his son. At last the Cap
ain said:
"Billy, this is worse than a fog in
nid-Atlantic. It is no use trying to
the Pearl Of Iulia in this. We
could hardly find o lighthouse. It
snt safe to be cropping round here,
either. You stay right here for a few
minutes till I walk back to that po-
iceman and ask him if he knows
whether Simpsons craft is near here.
Y ne doesn't we'll give it up. Don't