By and by, we saw a small side-wheel steamer coming toward us, from the direction of the harbor; whereupon the captain said to the pilot:
“Don’t you think that’s a steamer coming to take us in tow?”
“It looks very like it,” was the reply.
The captain then called the carpenter and instructed him to remove from the stern of the ship the board on which the name Brewster was painted.
“What is that for, Captain?” I asked.
“Don’t you know?” he replied.
“No.”
“How dull you are,” said he.
“You would be dull, too,” I retorted, “if you had never been out of sight of land but three or four times in your life. But, tell me—what is it for?”
“Why, you see, we have already been reported in distress; and if that fellow coming should recognize us, he would ask a thousand or fifteen hundred dollars to tow us in.”