The Republican journal., 1907-01-03
he climbed up to the bridge. very angry

Now the girl had gray Irish eyes and
the pilot was Irish himself, and long
ago when the first Irishman was made
it was ordered that never an Irishman
should look at a pretty girl coldly.
So the pilot lit great black cigar on
| the bridge and said to the captain:
ut seems to me it's letting up good
Bit"
THE FOG HAD THICKENED.
And the captain looked at the pilot
unwinkingly and answered: "Just what
/ was going to say myself"
If the man in the crows nest had
been consulted he might have reported
that the fog had just achieved trium-
plant degree of thickness, for he could
not see the lookout at the bow below
him any more, whereas before that he
could see a shaping down there that
looked dimly like something. But the
man in the crows nest was not con-
suited.
Thus it happened that presently the
indignant and sulky passengers heard
the chain come complaining home and
the awful siren beginning to whoop, and
then the propellers shook the ship again,
and into the thickness and the unseen
noises she walked at eight knots an
hour--jusc-fo times as fast as a fat
man would dare to walk along dark
country road where nothing could be-
fall him except stumble into mud
puddle.
"Christmas!" yelled the helmsman of
a fishing smack, showing his helm hard
down and inst scraping away from the
the white wall. Only he didn't mean
Chricf Io moonf othipr o1cp
Within ten minutes the captain of a
tug said something else, and out loud,
too, as he backed his little boat so mad
ly that he threw her on her stern just
as suddenly checked horse falls back
on it's launches.
1t was as well for the little boat
Otherwise she would have rammed her
self, nose on, against the sharp cut
water of the Imperia.
Up there on the high bridge nobody
even saw the tug A miss is as good as
mile, and the captain of the harbOl
boat was left to curse and swear in soil
tude. In the brightly lighted social hal
of the big ship the passengers sat with
suddenly loosed good fellowship. Every
body was talking to everybody else. The
millionaire persons even talked to Others
whom they suspected darkly of not be-
ing millionaires at all. Nobody looked
through the windows at the black fog
1twas too tiresome and very boring.
ANXIOUS TINE FOR TIE PILOT.
y On the bridge there was no boredom
Every minute was crowded. Guided by
the same sense that enables person to
find his way about familiar room in
an utter darkness, the pilot picked up
the channel, picked up the southwest
spit buoys, picked up red tuoy and black
buoy, turning buoy and range buoy
though they bobbed out of the black
ness only for the thousandth parts OF
breathless seconds and vanished again.
He nearly picked up a Portland schoon-
er, too, laundering around with all can
vas set fox place to anchor. The look.
out in the crows nest mechanically
ducked his head to save it from her gaff
as she swept by, so close to port that
she was almost aboard.
Once for frightful three breaths a
huge square scow lay almost under
foot. The Imperia's propellers reversed,
kicking up small Niagara and sucking
the mud from the bottom of the chan
mel in the giant attempt to check the
Roadway of. her $1,000 tons. But the
Christmas ship would have made port
l Will UlpOO Oh uCl PlON loL al LlldC ItO
the scow's tug not happened by blind
luck to tauten her hawser that very
instant.
The scow rumbled and bumped along
sixty feet of the liners side and sopped
up mighty muddy sea, but the seven
white-faced men aboard lived to send
enthusiastic curses from trembling lips
at the Imperia.
'By the Lord Harry" said the pilot
! to himself, 'd-n that girl. I'guess that
I'll take my wife Christmas present
of revoked license if l don't look
sharp"
Just Why diversified scows and barges
hauled by underpowered tugs always
choose the foggiest day to grope their
way down the lower harbor of the bust
est port in the world no one knows;
least of all the deep-sea pilots, who have
been puZZling over the matter for two
/ generations. On this Christmas day
every barge and other perfectly help
less variety of craft that was ever built
! in the Americas was in the main ship
channel. and every tug that was hauling
them did SO at the end of the longest
possible hawser, ard while the tug
Numbered slowly to pick up the channel
marks the tow, drifting on the slack
! hawser, cheerfully laid itself across the
! channel.
| MANY NARROW ESCAPES.
So many narrow escapes did they
Ahave that the pilot did not care to count
them. Still less did he care to think of
how many had passed unseen. Unseen
they passed the harbor lighthouses, un-
seen they passed Swinburne and Hoff-
man Islands, unseen they passed the
Narrows, and surprised the health Of
ficer at quarantine by booming out their
signal almost at his front door.
! "Great Scott" said he. Don't tell
! me that liner has come upv'
And smoking Jehosophat" said the
lcaptain of the revenue cutter Iroquois,
! lying at the lower end of New York, as
he read the despatch from quarantine.
What do you think? The Imperia has
come up through this!'
'Darn i'll" said the men in the little
ship news Office at the Battery. "Darn
it, what the devil did she want to come
up for? Why couldn't she lay off the
bar like the rest of 'em? Now there'll
be lot of stuff to write and our little
scheme for Christmas dinner is knock
ed to pot
And so they wrote their accounts and
they said good deal about the good
seamanship and the good pilotage that
! bn1 hrnurht tho b;r shin homo