“Good,” said the old man when he had finished. “I do believe that you can hope to be a sailor yet.”
He said it with such confidence that this must surely be Billy’s one ambition, that the boy made haste to correct him.
“I’m not going to be a sailor ever,” he said. “I’m going into business and—and make a pile of money.”
Captain Saulsby did not answer at once, for he was staring out beyond the point where one of the big battleships had chanced to come close in and was steaming by at full speed. Billy could see the tremendous wave that surged up before her bow; he watched the cloud of drifting smoke that poured from her funnels and he had suddenly a vision of what gigantic power must drive her so swiftly through the sea. It gave him a queer thrill, unlike anything that he had ever felt before, and, oddly enough, seemed to fill him with a sudden doubt as to the wisdom of his choice of a career. Buying and selling and making money might after all prove a dull occupation. Were there after all bigger things than Big Business? Such a question had never occurred to him before.
“Now,” said the Captain, interrupting his reverie, “you just tell your aunt to come down on the beach this afternoon and see the best boat this side of Cape Hatteras put to sea. These good warm days have baked some of the rheumatism out of me and I’m almost as good a man as you this morning. We’ll go down to the rocks below the willows there and put the Josephine into the water. I hope she’ll sail as pretty as she looks.”
It was a great occasion, the launching of the Josephine. Aunt Mattie attended it, and broke a bottle of cologne over the little vessel’s newly painted bow, to make a formal christening. There was a fresh wind that flecked the water with dancing white caps on one side of the point, but on the other, inside the harbour, afforded the best sort of breeze for a maiden trip. The sails were hoisted, the rudder adjusted and the little boat breathlessly lowered off the edge of a rock. She rocked and dipped upon the ripples in a bit of quiet water, then was pushed out until the wind caught her new white sails. How they curved to the breeze, how she heeled over just as a real vessel should and skimmed away as though she had a sailor at her helm and had set her course for far and foreign lands! The cord by which she was held trailed out behind her, grew taut, and at last brought her successful journey sharply to an end.
“Pull her in and we’ll try her on a different tack,” directed Captain Saulsby much excited; “she surely can sail! We didn’t hit it wrong when we named her the Josephine.”
Billy, who had no leanings of sentiment toward the name of Captain Saulsby’s well-beloved first ship, had felt that Josephine was not the most perfect title in the world for his new and cherished vessel. Captain Saulsby, however, had seemed so hurt and disappointed when he even hinted at the possibility of another choice, that the idea had been dropped at once. Certainly the little boat was doing her best to be worthy of her so-famous namesake.
“I wish I had a longer string,” said Billy; “it seems as though she only got a good start every time before I have to pull her in again.”
“She doesn’t have any chance to show what she can do,” answered the Captain, regarding his handiwork with as proud and pleased an eye as did Billy himself. “Here, now, the wind is right and the tide is running in; why shouldn’t we just launch her and let her sail across the harbour. She will come ashore, surely, on that bit of sandy beach and we can walk round and pick her up. That will give her a chance to do a bit of real sailing.”