“Any where,” said he.
“Let us take a boat-ride,” suggested Brooker.
“The very thing!” said Gilmore.
“I have been told,” I interposed, “that the harbor here is rather dangerous, and——”
“O, never mind! We can manage a boat in any harbor. I am some oarsman, myself.”
“There can’t be much danger with three of us to run the craft,” remarked Brooker. “Let us go!”
We went.
The face of the harbor was as smooth and gentle as that of a “sleeping beauty,” and the three of us glided gracefully out from one of the piers—a pair of oars, in my skillful (?) hands, gently dipping into the unruffled waters at irregular intervals. The friendly warning of Foard was entirely forgotten.
O, Foard! Thou best of friends! Though John Smith may be wandering thousands of miles from the happy spot where thy kind face first smiled a welcome to him in a strange land, yet fresh in his memory is that noble and pleasing face, as on the day thy warning voice said: “Don’t go out on the harbor, Smith!”
The air is usually quiet in the morning, at San Francisco, but as the day advances, a stiff breeze springs up, and, on meeting the ebbing tide, stirs up the waters of the harbor, as though a young son of Neptune were just beneath the surface, lashing them with his toy-whip: the waterman must then exercise his utmost strength and skill to navigate with safety.