Cap'n Warren's Wards Part 14

He departed, smiling. The indignant office boy threw the card on the table.

Captain Elisha strolled down Pine Street, looking about him with interest. It had been years since he visited this locality, and the changes were many. Soon, however, he began to recognize familiar landmarks. He was approaching the water front, and there were fewer new buildings. When he reached South Street he was thoroughly at home.

The docks were crowded. The river was alive with small craft of all kinds. Steamers and schooners were plenty, but the captain missed the old square-riggers, the clipper ships and barks, such as he had sailed in as cabin boy, as foremast hand, and, later, commanded on many seas.

At length, however, he saw four masts towering above the roof of a freight house. They were not schooner rigged, those masts. The yards were set square across, and along them were furled royals and upper topsails. Here, at last, was a craft worth looking at. Captain Elisha crossed the street, hurried past the covered freight house, and saw a magnificent great ship lying beside a broad open wharf. Down the wharf he walked, joyfully, as one who greets an old friend.

The wharf was practically deserted. An ancient watchman was dozing in a sort of sentry box, but he did not wake. There was a pile of foreign-looking crates and boxes at the further end of the pier, evidently the last bit of cargo waiting to be carted away. The captain inspected the pile, recognized the goods as Chinese and j.a.panese, then read the name on the big ship's stern. She was the _Empress of the Ocean_, and her home port was Liverpool.

Captain Elisha, as a free-born Yankee skipper, had an inherited and cherished contempt for British "lime-juicers," but he could not help admiring this one. To begin with, her size and tonnage were enormous.

Also, she was four-masted, instead of the usual three, and her hull and lower spars were of steel instead of wood. A steel sailing vessel was something of a novelty to the captain, and he was seized with a desire to go aboard and inspect.

The ladder from ship to wharf was down, of course, and getting on board was an easy matter. When he reached the deck and looked about him, the great size of the ship was still more apparent. The bulwarks were as high as a short man's head. She was decked over aft, and, as the captain said afterwards, "her cabins had nigh as many stories as a house."

From the roof of the "first story," level with the bulwarks, extended a series of bridges, which could be hoisted or lowered, and by means of which her officers could walk from stern to bow without descending to the deck. There was a good-sized engine house forward, beyond the galley and forecastle. Evidently the work of hoisting anchors and canvas was done by steam.

The captain strolled about, looking her over. The number of improvements since his seagoing days was astonishing. He was standing by the wheel, near the companion way, wishing that he might inspect the officers'

quarters, but not liking to do so without an invitation, when two men emerged from the cabin.

One of the pair was evidently the j.a.panese steward of the ship. The other was a tall, clean-cut young fellow, whose general appearance and lack of sunburn showed quite plainly that he was not a seafaring man by profession. The steward caught sight of Captain Elisha, and, walking over, accosted him.

"Want to see skipper, sir?" he asked, in broken English. "He ash.o.r.e."

"No, Doctor," replied the captain, cheerfully. "I don't want to see him. I've got no business aboard. It's been some time since I trod the quarter-deck of a square-rigger, and I couldn't resist the temptation of tryin' how the planks felt under my feet. This is consider'ble of a clipper you've got here," he added.

"Yes, sir," replied the steward grinning.

"Where you from?" asked Captain Elisha.

"Singapore, sir."

"Cargo all out?"

"Yes, sir."

"Waitin' for another one?"

"Yes, sir. We load for Manila bimeby."

"Manila, hey? Have a good pa.s.sage across?"

"Yes, sir. She good ship."

"Shouldn't wonder. How d'ye do, sir," to the young man, who was standing near. "Hope you won't think I'm crowdin' in where I don't belong. I was just tellin' the doctor here that it had been some time since I trod a quarter-deck, and I thought I'd see if I'd forgot the feel."

"Have you?" asked the young man, smiling.

"Guess not. Seems kind of nat'ral. I never handled such a whale of a craft as this, though. Didn't have many of 'em in my day. Come over in her, did you?"

"No," with a shake of the head. "No such luck. I'm a land lubber, just scouting round, that's all. She's a bully vessel, isn't she?"

"Looks so. Tell you better after I've seen what she could do in a full-sail breeze. All hands ash.o.r.e, Doctor?"

"Yes, sir," replied the steward.

"Crew paid off and spendin' their money, I s'pose. Well, if it ain't against orders, I'd kind of like to look around a little mite. May I?"

The steward merely grinned. His companion answered for him.

"Certainly you may," he said. "I'm a friend of one of the consignees, and I'd be glad to show you the ship, if you like. Shall we begin with the cabins?"

Captain Elisha, delighted with the opportunity, expressed his thanks, and the tour of inspection began. The steward remained on deck, but the captain and his new acquaintance strolled through the officers' quarters together.

"Jerushy!" exclaimed the former, as he viewed the main cabin. "Say, you could pretty nigh have a dance here, couldn't you? A small one. This reminds me of the cabin aboard the _Sea Gull_, first vessel I went mate of--it's so diff'rent. Aboard her we had to walk sittin' down. There wa'n't room in the cabin for more'n one to stand up at a time. But she could sail, just the same--and carry it, too. I've seen her off the Horn with studdin' sails set, when craft twice her length and tonnage had everything furled above the tops'l yard. Hi hum! you mustn't mind an old salt runnin' on this way. I've been out of the pickle tub a good while, but I cal'late the brine ain't all out of my system."

His guide's eyes snapped.

"I understand," he said, laughing. "I've never been at sea, on a long voyage, in my life, but I can understand just how you feel. It's in my blood, I guess. I come of a salt water line. My people were from Belfast, Maine, and every man of them went to sea."

"Belfast, hey? They turned out some A No. 1 sailors in Belfast. I sailed under a Cap'n Pearson from there once--James Pearson, his name was."

"He was my great uncle. I was named for him. My name is James Pearson, also."

"_What_?" Captain Elisha was hugely delighted. "Mr. Pearson, shake hands. I want to tell you that your Uncle Jim was a seaman of the kind you dream about, but seldom meet. I was his second mate three v'yages.

My name's Elisha Warren."

Mr. Pearson shook hands and laughed, good-humoredly.

"Glad to meet you, Captain Warren," he said. "And I'm glad you knew Uncle Jim. As a youngster, he was my idol. He could spin yarns that were worth listening to."

"I bet you! He'd seen things wuth yarnin' about. So you ain't a sailor, hey? Livin' in New York?"

The young man nodded. "Yes," he said. Then, with a dry smile, "If you call occupying a hall bedroom and eating at a third-rate boarding-house table living. However, it's my own fault. I've been a newspaper man since I left college. But I threw up my job six months ago. Since then I've been free-lancing."

"Have, hey?" The captain was too polite to ask further questions, but he had not the slightest idea what "free-lancing" might be. Pearson divined his perplexity and explained.

"I've had a feeling," he said, "that I might write magazine articles and stories--yes, possibly a novel or two. It's a serious disease, but the only way to find out whether it's chronic or not is to experiment.

That's what I'm doing now. The thing I'm at work on may turn out to be a sea story. So I spend some time around the wharves and aboard the few sailing ships in port, picking up material."

Captain Elisha patted him on the back.

"Now don't you get discouraged," he said. "I used to have an idea that novel writin' and picture paintin' was poverty jobs for men with healthy appet.i.tes, but I've changed my mind. I don't know's you'll believe it, but I've just found out, for a fact, that some painters get twenty-two thousand dollars for one picture. For _one_, mind you. And a little mite of a thing, too, that couldn't have cost scarcely anything to paint.

Maybe novels sell for just as much. _I_ don't know."

His companion laughed heartily. "I'm afraid not, Captain," he said.

"Few, at any rate. I should be satisfied with considerably less, to begin with. Are you living here in town?"

"Well--we-ll, I don't know. I ain't exactly livin', and I ain't exactly boardin', but--Say! ain't that the doctor callin' you?"