The long-strung docks were massed and webbed with ship rigging; the water was livened with boats and canoes; the wooden warehouses back of the docks were overtopped by wooden houses in tiers, until high above them all the Capitol itself was the fitting climax.
Rolf knew something of shipping, and amid all the massed boats his eyes fell on a strange, square-looking craft with a huge water-wheel on each side. Then, swinging into better view, he read her name, the Clermont, and knew that this was the famous Fulton steamer, the first of the steamboat age.
But Bill was swamped by no such emotion. Albany, Hudson, Clermont, and all, were familiar stories to him and he stolidly headed the canoe for the dock he knew of old.
Loafers roosting on the snubbing posts hailed him, at first with raillery; but, coming nearer, he was recognized. “Hello, Bill; back again? Glad to see you,” and there was superabundant help to land the canoe.
“Wall, wall, wall, so it's really you,” said the touter of a fur house, in extremely friendly voice; “come in now and we'll hev a drink.”
“No, sir-ree,” said Bill decisively, “I don't drink till business is done.”
“Wall, now, Bill, here's Van Roost's not ten steps away an' he hez tapped the finest bar'l in years.”
“No, I tell ye, I'm not drinking—now.”
“Wall, all right, ye know yer own business. I thought maybe ye'd be glad to see us.”
“Well, ain't I?”