Fritz and Eric Part 16

"And where's that?" further inquired Fritz.

"New England way, I reckon, whar I wer raised."

"Any ships or shipping trade there?"

The man laughed out heartily.

"Jerusalem, that's prime, anyhow!" he exclaimed. "Any ships at Providence? Why, you might as well ask if thar wer any fish in the sea!

Thar are heaps and heaps on 'em up to Rhode Island, mister, from a scoop up to a whaler; so I guess we can fix you up slick if you come aboard!"

"All right, I will," said Fritz; "that is, if the fare is not too high."

"Guess two-fifty won't break you, hey?" responded the deck hand, meaning two-and-a-half dollars.

"No," said Fritz; "I think I can manage that. What time do you start?"

"Five o'clock sharp."

"That will just give me time to fetch my valise," said Fritz, thinking aloud.

"Where away is that?" asked the man.

"Chatham Street," answered Fritz, "just below the town hall."

"Oh, I know, mister, well enough whar Chatham Street is! Yes, you'll have plenty of time if you look smart."

"Thank you, I will," said Fritz; and, going back to the boarding-house where he had been stopping, he soon returned to the quay with the little valise that carried all his impedimenta--reaching the steamer just in the nick of time as she was casting off.

As he jumped on to her deck, the gangway was withdrawn.

"All aboard?" sang out the captain from the pilot-house on the hurricane deck.

"Aye, aye, all aboard," was the response from Fritz's friend the deck hand, who, with only a red flannel shirt on and a pair of check trousers--very unsailorlike in appearance altogether--stood in the bows.

"Then fire away and let her rip!" came the reply from the captain above, followed by the tinkle of an electric bell in the engine-room, the steamer's paddles revolving with a splash the moment afterwards and urging her on her watery way.

Round the Battery at Manhattan Point she glided, and up the East River through h.e.l.l Gate into Long Island Sound--one of the most sheltered channels in the world, and more like a lake or lagoon than an arm of the sea--leaving a broad wake of creamy green foam behind her like a mill- race, and quivering from stem to stern with every revolution of her shaft, with every throb of her high-pressure engines!

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

AN UNEXPECTED MEETING.

The Rhode Island steamer was a splendid boat, Fritz found, when he came to look about him; for, she was a "floating palace," every inch of her, with magnificent saloons and state-cabins stretching away the entire length of the vessel fore and aft. A light hurricane deck was above all, on which the pa.s.sengers could promenade up and down to their hearts' content, having comfortable cane-bottomed seats along the sides to sit down upon when tired and no gear, or rope coils, or other nautical "dunnage," to interrupt their free locomotion on this king of quarter-decks, which had, besides, an awning on top to tone down the potency of the western sun.

With three tiers of decks--the lowermost, or main, containing the engine-room and stowage place for cargo, as well as the men's quarters; the lower saloon, in which were the refreshment bars, and what could only appropriately be called the "dining hall," if such a term were not an anachronism on board ship; and, thirdly, the upper saloon, containing the princ.i.p.al cabins and state-rooms, in addition to the graceful promenading hurricane deck surmounting the whole--the steamer had the appearance of one of those bungalow-like pretended "houses" which children build up with a pack of cards. Only that, this illusion was speedily destroyed by the huge beam of the engine, working up and down like a monster chain-pump on top of the whole structure--not to speak of the twin smoke-stacks on either side of the paddle-boxes emitting volumes of thick, stifling vapour, and the two pilot-houses, one at each extremity of the hurricane deck; for, like most American river steamers, the boat was what was called a "double-ender," built whale-boat fashion to go either backwards or forwards, a very necessary thing to avoid collision in crowded waters.

Fritz could not but realise that the ingenious construction which he was gazing at was essentially a Yankee invention, resembling nothing in European waters.

If he had not yet been fully convinced of this fact, the eldritch screech which the steam whistle shortly evolved, in obedience to the pressure of the captain's finger on a valve in the pilot-house forward-- whence the vessel was steered--would have at once decided his mind on the point. It was the most fearful, ear-deafening, blood-curdling sound he had ever heard in his life!

Fritz thought something had happened--that the boiler was in danger of bursting, or the vessel sinking at the least--but, on making a startled inquiry of the nearest person, he was rea.s.sured by learning that the "whistle," as the frightful noise was called, was only emitted in courteous salutation to another steamer pa.s.sing in the distance, bound down to New York; and soon, an answering squeal from the boat in question, mercifully tempered by the distance into a faint squeak that lent more "enchantment" to its notes than was possessed by the one which had just startled him, corroborated the truth of this statement.

After enjoying the scenery from the hurricane deck for some little time, Fritz made his way below to the forward part of the main deck running into the bows, where he had noticed, while looking down from above, his friend the deck hand of the Garibaldi shirt and blue cotton check trousers--or "pants" as the man would himself probably have called these garments.

He was busily engaged coiling down ropes and otherwise making himself useful, singing the while in a light-hearted way a queer sort of serio- comic and semi-sentimental ditty, the most curious composition Fritz had ever come across.

He, therefore, could not help laughing when the singer arrived at the end of his lay.

The man turned round at once on hearing the sound of his merriment.

"Nice song, that," said Fritz, as soon as he could compose his face sufficiently to speak. "Just the sort of tender tone about it that I like!"

"None o' your gas, mister," replied the other with a smile, which showed that he was not offended at Fritz's chaff. "It's only a lot o' nonsense I picked up somehow or other out West."

"It is a very funny mixture," said Fritz. "It is a wonder to me who imagines these absurd things and makes them up!"

"Right you air," replied the man. "A heap more curious it is than the folks who write the clever things; and the queerest bit about it is, too, that the nonsense spreads quicker and faster than the sense!"

"Human nature," said Fritz laconically, expressing thus his opinion of the matter.

"You're a philosopher, I reckon?" observed the deck hand in reply.

"No, not quite that," answered Fritz, rather surprised at such a remark from a man of the sort. "I merely form conclusions from what I see.

I'm only a clerk--and you?"

"I'm a deck hand now," said the other, speaking rather bitterly. "Last fall, I was a cow boy, Minnesota way; next year, I'll be goodness knows what. Once, I was a gentleman!"

"And how--" began Fritz, when the other interrupted him brusquely.

"Put it all down to the cussed drink, mister, and you won't be far out,"

said he, laughing mockingly, so as to disguise what he really felt by the avowal; "but," he added, to turn the conversation, "you speak very good English for a German, which I ken see you are."

"I was educated partly in England," said Fritz.

"Ah, that accounts for it. Been long in this country?"

"About six weeks," replied Fritz.

"Travelling for pleasure, or looking about you?" was the next query from the deck hand, whom Fritz thought strangely inquisitive for an utter stranger. Still, the man did not mean any harm; it was only the custom of the country, as all new-comers speedily find out.

"I'm looking about for work," he answered rather curtly. "I wish you would get me some."

Fritz thought this would have silenced his interlocutor; but, instead of that, the deck hand proceeded with a fresh string of questions.

"What can you do?" he asked amiably, his smile robbing the words of any impertinence. "You don't look like one who has roughed it much."