“No,” he said, “I didn’t know; I was raised back o’ the Yards. But if you say, ‘nix on it,’ nix it is. What—what do you think of the boat, Mr. Pitt? We can discuss that, can’t we?”
“Freely,” I laughed. “From what I’ve seen the Wanderer is a remarkable yacht.”
“And you haven’t seen anything but the gingerbread work. I’m off watch. Come on; let’s walk around and pipe her off. It’ll take the taste of that bum battle out of your mouth.”
I accepted willingly, and for an hour Pierce piloted me about the yacht.
The Wanderer is a craft of wonders. I have Pierce’s word that the yacht is 152 feet long on the water line with her present load, and that the load is the maximum which we could carry with safety. Her size below the cabin deck is amazing. In her engine room are some of the largest gasoline engines ever placed in a yacht, if Pierce’s information is correct. There are two great gleaming batteries of them, each battery capable of driving us at a speed of ten knots an hour, the two combined able to hurry us along at fourteen knots, if necessary. Besides this we have a small auxiliary engine and propeller, a novelty installed by the former owner, Harrison. We could smash both of our major engines and the auxiliary still would move us.
Built into the bows are the reserve gasoline tanks. There is enough fuel in them, says Pierce, to drive the Wanderer twice around the world. Aft of these vast tanks are the storerooms. They are locked. Captain Brack has the key, but Freddy assures me that enough provisions have been loaded into them to keep our company of fifteen men well fed for two years.
“Which certainly is playing safe, seeing as we’re not supposed to get frozen in,” said he, as we completed our tour below decks. “Now, come on and I’ll show you my private office.”
He led the way up a ladder to the little wireless house on the aft of the main cabin. This was Pierce’s room. His bunk was beside the table on which were his instruments, and he had covered the walls—“decorated,” he called it—with newspaper cuts of celebrated baseball players, pugilists, motor-racers, and women of the musical comedy stage. Lajoie’s picture was next to Terry McGovern’s, and Chevrolet’s beside Miss Anna Held’s. I smiled as I seated myself.
“Something of a connoisseur, I see, Pierce.”
“Whatever that means,” he responded. He had become serious again. He took a cigaret paper from his pocket, absently tore it to pieces and sat glancing out over the waters of the Sound.