precise number, in
thousands, of gallons which I am guaranteed to throw per hour; but I
assure you, my complaining friends, that there is not the least
danger. I alone am capable of clearing any water that may find its way
here. By my Biggest Deliveries, we pitched then!"

The sea was getting up in workmanlike style. It was a dead westerly
gale, blown from under a ragged opening of green sky, narrowed on all
sides by fat, gray clouds; and the wind bit like pincers as it fretted
the spray into lacework on the flanks of the waves.

"I tell you what it is," the foremast telephoned down its wire-stays.
"I'm up here, and I can take a dispassionate view of things. There's
an organized conspiracy against us. I'm sure of it, because every
single one of these waves is heading directly for our bows. The whole
sea is concerned in it--and so's the wind. It's awful!"

"What's awful?" said a wave, drowning the capstan for the hundredth
time.

"This organized conspiracy on your part," the capstan gurgled, taking
his cue from the mast.

"Organized bubbles and spindrift! There has been a depression in the
Gulf of Mexico. Excuse me!" He leaped overside; but his friends took
up the tale one after another.

"Which has advanced----" That wave hove green water over the funnel.

"As far as Cape Hatteras----" He drenched the bridge.

"And is now going out to sea--to sea--to sea!" The third went free in
three surges, making a clean sweep of a boat, which turned bottom up
and sank in the darkening troughs alongside, while the broken falls
whipped the davits.

"That's all there is to it," seethed the white water roaring through
the scuppers. "There's no animus in our proceedings. We're only
meteorological corollaries."

"Is it going to get any worse?" said the bow-anchor, chained down to
the deck, where he could only breathe once in five minutes.

"Not knowing, can't say. Wind may blow a bit by midnight. Thanks
awfully. Good-bye."

The wave that spoke so politely had travelled some distance aft, and
found itself all mixed up on the deck amidships, which was a well-deck
sunk between high bulwarks. One of the bulwark plates, which was hung
on hinges to open outward, had swung out, and passed the bulk of the
water back to the sea again with a clean smack.

"Evidently that's what I'm made for," said the plate, closing again
with a sputter of pride. "Oh, no, you don't my friend!"

The top of a wave was trying to get in from the outsi