The clerk hesitated. Then Larry announced who he was, and said he wanted to have a talk with Captain Tantrella.
"Oh, you're the reporter who wrote up the wreck of the Olivia," the clerk replied, with a smile. "I've heard about you. Yes, I guess you can go aboard. I'll write you out a pass."
With the necessary paper as a passport, Larry walked down the long, covered dock, alongside of which the freight steamer was being warped into place. There was no bustling crowd of passengers, eager to get ashore to welcome and be welcomed by even more eager relatives and friends. But there was a small army of men ready to swarm aboard the Turtle and hurry the freight out of her holds, in order that more might be placed in to be sent abroad. There was a confusion of wagons and trucks, and the puffing of donkey engines, seemingly anxious to begin lifting big boxes and bales from the dark interior of the ship.
Larry was among the first to go up the gang plank when it was run ashore. A ship's officer stopped him, but allowed him to proceed when he saw the pass.
Larry found Captain Tantrella in his cabin, arranging his papers, for there is considerable formality about a ship that comes from one country to another, and much red tape is used.
"Ah, it is my newspaper friend!" exclaimed the commander when he saw Larry. "Have you interviewed any more captains who have been wrecked?"
Though he spoke with an air of gayety Larry could see the captain was sad at heart, for, though it was not his fault that the Olivia had gone ashore, Captain Tantrella had been more or less blamed, and had been reduced in rank. Passengers do not, as a rule, care to sail in a ship under the command of one whose vessel has been lost. So poor Captain Tantrella was now only in charge of a freighter, and he felt his disgrace keenly.
"Do you remember a passenger named Mah Retto, who sailed with you on the Olivia?" the reporter asked.
"I remember him; yes. A queer sort of man. He said but little on the whole voyage. But was he not lost? I remember we could not find him when we had all been landed from the wreck."
"He came ashore first of all," replied Larry. "A fisherman and I helped save him from a life-raft," and he told the circumstances.