Up The Baltic Part 49

"See the steamers!" exclaimed Laybold, as a couple of the miniature craft, which abound in the waters of Stockholm, whisked up to the quay.

"A fellow could put half a dozen of them into his trousers pocket,"

laughed Scott. "We must go on a cruise in some of them, as soon as we get settled."

"Well, where's the hotel?" asked Sanford.

It was in plain sight from the bridge, which they crossed to the Square of Gustavus Adolphus, on which the hotel faced.

"Good morning, young gentlemen. I am happy to see you," said Mr.

Blaine, the head steward of the ship, who was the first person to greet them as they entered the hotel.

"Ah, Mr. Blaine!" exclaimed Sanford, his face glowing with apparent satisfaction. "I am delighted to see you; for I was afraid we should never find the ship."

"Were you, indeed? Well, I had the same fear myself. I have been looking for you ever since the ship sailed."

"We have done our best to find the ship, Mr. Blaine," added Sanford.

"O, of course you have; but of course, as you didn't find her, you were not so babyish as to sit down and cry about it."

"Certainly not; still we were very anxious to find her."

"Mr. Peaks says you came down from Christiania before he did."

"Yes, sir."

"And you were so anxious to find the ship, that you took a train to the interior of the country, expecting, no doubt, to come across her on some hill, or possibly on some of these inland lakes," continued Mr. Blaine.

"We were looking for the ship's company. We met Scott and Laybold, who were going into the interior, and we concluded to join them, as they wanted to find their shipmates," replied Sanford, who was now not entirely confident that "the independent excursion without running away" was a success.

"Ah! so you have picked up those two young gentlemen, who ran away,"

added the head steward, glancing at Scott and Laybold.

"Not exactly, sir; they picked us up," answered the c.o.xswain.

"I think it was a mutual picking up, and we picked each other up,"

laughed Scott. "We knew that Sanford and his crew were extremely anxious to find the ship's company, and if we joined them we should be sure to come out right."

"Exactly so," laughed Mr. Blaine. "Let me see; after our first day's run on sh.o.r.e, by some mistake you neglected to come on board at night, with the others."

"That was the case exactly. The fact is, we were too drunk to go on board with the others."

"Drunk!" exclaimed Mr. Blaine.

"Such was our melancholy condition, sir," added Scott, shaking his head. "We were invited, in a restaurant, to drink 'finkel,' and not knowing what finkel was, we did drink; and it boozed us exceedingly."

"You are very honest about it, Scott."

"We are about everything, sir. We slept at a hotel, and when we went down to the wharf to go on board, we learned that the ship's company had gone to Trolldoldiddledy Falls. As we felt pretty well, we thought we would take a train, see a little of the inside of Sweden, and meet the ship's company at Squozzlebogchepping."

"Where's that?" asked Mr. Blaine.

"I can't give you the lat.i.tude and longitude of the jaw-breaker, but it was at the junction of the two railways, where the party came down from the ca.n.a.l. We were sure we should find our fellows there, but the Swedish figures bothered us, and we made a mistake in the hour the train was due."

"But the Swedish figures are the same as ours," suggested the head steward.

"Are they? Well, I don't know what the matter was, except that we were five minutes too late for the train. That's what's the matter."

"How very unfortunate it was you lost that train!"

"It was, indeed; I couldn't have felt any worse if I had lost my great-grandmother, who died fifty years before I was born. These honest fellows felt bad, too."

"Of course they did."

"We took the next train to Gottenburg; but when we arrived, the ship had sailed for Copenhagen, which I was more anxious to see than any other place in Northern Europe."

"And for that reason you came on to Stockholm."

"No, sir; you are too fast, Mr. Blaine. Your consequent does not agree with the antecedent. There was no steamer for Copenhagen for a couple of days."

"There was a steamer within an hour after you reached Gottenburg in that train, and an hour before the sailing of the ca.n.a.l steamer; and Mr. Peaks went down in her," said Mr. Blaine.

"We didn't know it."

"Certainly you did not."

"We knew of no steamer till Monday, and we were afraid, if we went in her, that we should be too late to join the ship in Copenhagen; and with heroic self-denial, we abandoned our fondly-cherished hope of seeing the capital of Denmark, and hastened on to Stockholm, so as to be sure and not miss the ship again. These honest fellows," said Scott, pointing to Sanford and his companions, "agreed with us that this was the only safe course to take."

"I see that you struggled very violently to join your ship, and I only wonder that such superhuman efforts should have failed."

"They have not failed, sir," protested Scott. "The ship will come here, and we will join her then, or perish in the attempt."

"Are you not afraid some untoward event will defeat your honest intentions?"

"If they are defeated it will not be our fault."

"No, I suppose not; but whom have you there?" inquired the head steward, for the first time observing Ole, who had pressed forward to hear Scott's remarks. "Ole?"

"Yes, sir; that's the valiant Ole, of Norway," replied the joker.

His presence was satisfactorily explained by the c.o.xswain.

"Why did you desire to leave the ship, Ole? Didn't we use you well?"

asked Mr. Blaine.

"Very well indeed, sir; but I was bashful, and did not wish to see some people in Christiansand," replied the waif.

"What people?"

Ole evaded all inquiries, as he had a dozen times before, and declined to explain anything relating to his past history. Mr. Blaine said he had heard the party had taken the ca.n.a.l steamer, and he immediately proceeded to Stockholm by railroad. He at once telegraphed to Mr.