"Will I!" I said. "Where shall I meet you?"
"At the foot of Liberty Street, at five o'clock."
"I'll be there," I promised. And I was.
The boat was cast loose as soon as we got aboard, backed out into the busy river, her whistle shrieking shrilly, then swung about and headed down stream. It was a fast boat—the Record, which prided itself on outdistancing its contemporaries in other directions, would of course try to do so in this—and when she got fairly into her stride, with her engines throbbing rhythmically, the shore on either hand slipped past us rapidly.
The New York sky-line, as seen from the river, is one of the wonders of the world, and I stood looking at it until we swung out into the bay. There were two other men on board—the regular ship reporters, I suppose—and Godfrey had gone into the cabin with them to talk over some detail of the evening's work; so I went forward to the bow, where I would get the full benefit of the salt breeze, with the taste of it on my lips. The Statue of Liberty was just ahead, and already the great search-light in her torch was winking across the water. Craft innumerable crossed and re-crossed, their lights reflected in the waves, and far ahead, a little to the left, I could see the white glow against the sky which marked the position of Coney Island.
Godfrey joined me presently, and we stood for some time looking at this scene in silence.
"It's a great sight, isn't it?" he said, at last. "Hello! look at that boat!" he added, as a yacht, coming down the bay, drew abreast of us and then slowly forged ahead. "She can go some, can't she? This boat of ours is no slouch, you know; but just look how that one walks away from us. I wonder who she is? What boat is that, captain?" he called to the man on the bridge.
"Don't know, sir," answered the captain, after a look through his glasses. "Private yacht—can't make out her name—there's a flag or something hanging over the stern. She's flying the French flag. There come the other press boats behind us, sir," he added. "And there's the Savoie just slowing down at quarantine."
Far ahead we could see the great hull of the liner, dark against the horizon, and crowned with row upon row of glowing lights.
"One doesn't appreciate how big those boats are until one sees them from the water," I remarked. "Isn't she immense?"