“I like this,” said Tommy Toby to the steward. “Are the passengers here more likely to be sick than in the first cabin?”
“No,” said the steward. “This is the steadiest part of the ship.”
“Then what is the difference between the cabin and the steerage?”
“Well, the difference is in the folks, and the furniture, and the way you eat your victuals.”
The steerage passengers were allowed the freedom of the decks, but not of the grand saloons. Master Lewis and the boys seated themselves in a group on the upper deck, when they had well visited the different parts of the ship.
Early in the evening, the immense ship moved slowly and steadily away from the sultry wharves into the calm sea and cool air. The great city with its gleaming spires seemed sinking in the sea, and the hills of Neversink to be burying themselves in the shadows.
Pilot boats several times crossed the track of the steamer, with their numbers conspicuously painted on their sails.
“Why does a captain, who navigates a ship across the ocean,” asked Frank of Master Lewis, “need the assistance of pilots and pilot-boats when he is in sight of land?”
“It is because the harbor is more dangerous than the open ocean, and pilots make these dangers the study of their lives.
“See yonder pilot-boat skimming with the grace of a sea-bird along the sea. It has the stanchness of a ship built for the longest voyages. It is doubtless made of the best oak, is sheathed with the best copper, and may have cost twenty thousand dollars.”