“No, I think we are dragging our anchor—that’s all,” answered her mother. “It must be seen to.”
Putting on her dressing gown and slippers, Mrs. Martin went to the other cabin where her husband was sleeping with Ted. A touch on his shoulder awakened Mr. Martin.
“What is it?” he asked sleepily. “Have we reached Pittsburgh yet, porter?”
“You aren’t in a sleeping car, traveling to Pittsburgh,” laughed his wife. In his earlier days Mr. Martin had been a traveling salesman and covered many thousands of miles in sleeping cars.
“What is it, then?” he asked, sitting up. By the gleam of the little light he saw his wife standing near his berth.
“The boat is moving,” she told him.
“Moving?”
“Yes. Don’t you feel it? Janet felt it first and called me. I think we are dragging our anchor.”
“So we are!” exclaimed Mr. Martin, as he felt the sensation of the boat moving. “But it isn’t anything serious. I’ll drop it in a new place where it will hold better.”
As he was putting on a coat and trousers to go out on the little forward deck, where the anchor rope was caught around a cleat, Ted awakened.