ss Proctor, however, slipped little slips and
screamed little screams, while young Mr. Carlin, Bradford and Welton,
with galvanized beaming smiles, all attempted to help her. Mrs. Owen
marched down the chute, waited calmly and without impatience until all
the available men were at hand, and then stepped down majestically with
dignity unimpaired.

Long before this, Bobby had quit the altogether uninteresting wharf. The
_Robert O_ he had seen many times from a distance, and once of twice
near at hand lying at the cribs and piers, but this was his first chance
to explore. Accordingly he dropped down to her deck, and, with the
natural instinct to see as far ahead as possible, marched immediately to
the very prow. The deck proved to slope up-hill strangely, which, in its
unlikeness to any floor Bobby had ever walked on, was in itself a
pleasure. The hawser around the bitt interested him; and the glimpse he
had of the sparkling river slipping toward him from the yellow hills up
stream. He could just rest his chin on the rail to look.

Then he turned his gaze aft; and encountered the amused scrutiny of a
man leaning on a wheel in a little house. The house had big windows, and
on top was an iron eagle with spread wings. Two steps led up to a door
on each side; and Bobby without hesitation entered one of these doors.

The inside of the house he found different from any house he had ever
been in before; and possessed of a strange fascination. There was the
wheel, with projecting handles to every spoke, and above it, racks
containing spyglasses, black pipes, tobacco-tins. At hand projected a
speaking-tube like that in the back hall at home, and two or three
handles connected with wires. Behind the wheel was a broad leather seat;
and clothes on nails; and a chart; and a pilot's licence, of which Bobby
understood nothing, but admired the round gold seals.

"Well, Bobby, what do you think of it?" asked the man.

Bobby had not had time to look at the man. He did so now and liked him.
The first thing he noticed was the man's eyes, which were steady and
unwavering and as blue as the sky. Then he surveyed in turn gravely his
heavy bleached, flaxen moustache; his hard brown cheeks; the round
barrel of his blue-clad body; and his short sturdy legs.

"Think you'd like to run a tug?" inquired this man.

"I don't know," replied Bobby; "what is your name?"

"I'm Captain Marsh," replied the man. He glanced out the open door at
the group