Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1915-07-01

81 was introduced to the game way
back in the early eighties, when the
big ice famine struck New York.
Something upset the calendar that
year and summer rushed down upon
the country before they had harvested
enough ice to cool champagne for the
-Four Hundred Prices hoped like a
hungry grasshopper when he sights a
green patch In sand desert, and the
man who could afford to buy three
ounces of ice day was in the class
that habitate on the top rungs Of the
poverty escapes.
81 owned three steam tugs in those
days, and as l was sitting on the deck
one morning when the mercury was
hitting the high gr? des without an ef-
fort, long pale-faced fellow climbed
over the side and came towards me.
He carried newspaper cutting and a
roll of bills, and he handed them to me
in that order. The bit of paper said
that Nova Scotian skipper had sigl.t.
ed an iceberg 200 miles east of Nan.
tucket, but that didn't interest me as
| much as the wad.
"'What's the currency for?' I ques-
toned
"'I represent the Manhattan Iceberg
| Syndicate replied the stranger, and
want you to tow that block of frozen
ocean in as quick as you can get your
hawsers on it.
"You bet stared at him. Drinking
lukewarm stuff with the temperature
inc Lot of
people with the loco bug in those days,
and thought had butted into case
| in the last stages. l tried to shoot him
off the boat, but he wouldn't go. l
| pointed out to him that an iceberg was
| as dangerous to meddle with as q
J crooked politician, besides being made
| of much more perishable material, but
he wouldn't be put off. Finally l agreed
| to go out in search of the berg in con-
sideration of cash payment of $1,000
which payment was to be increased to
$4,000 if the job of pulling the ice lump
to the harbor appeared practicable AS
this vast left to my discretion l felt
pretty secur> as we butted out into
the Atlantic.
1--WE found the berg all right. 1t was
melting away quicker than the wad
Of fool guy playing the ponies, and
/ kept praying hard for 1t to disappear
altogether while that fellow was urg.
ing me to go in and clinch with it. He
got excited when / contented myself
with viewing the affair at safe dis
tance, and the fool wanted to take a
boat and tie hawser to a pole that
stuck up out of 1t at one end.
"That pole puzzled me. 1t kept grow
ing taller as the pieces fell away from
tho main section, and oh the second
day it stood up like the mainmast of q
windjammer. The berg performed a
few aerobatic feats that would have
been rather unhealthy for any boat
that had 1t in tow, and the last one OF
these that she did gave US bit Of a
shock. She split right down the cen
ter ard there right before our eyes was
a Spanish galleon that had. been boxed
up in that lump of ice like a kernel OF
a horse chestnut!
"You should have seen that long fell
low when the old Noah's arm came In
to view. He tore round the tug like a
madman. Offering the crew $50 day il
they were game to pull up along side
the berg In the small boats and as II
was as calm as nlfll pond three OF
them consented.
"'What are you going to dor ask
ed as he clambered over the side. DC
you think you can launch the old
poppy-show?'
"He lowered two axes into the boat
and then he turned round to me. you
just remember the terms of our con
tract he said, quietly. 4 have put II
down in writing that all icebergs We
find are my property. If I'm not much
mistaken this boat is one that com
prised the Spanish Armada that invad
ed England in the fifteenth century
The defeated fleet tried to get away
round the north of Scotland, but they
were all wrecked. and as this one Ii
now my property l think you'll have Q
load Of gold to tug to New York In
stead of frozen water"