"I sights her smoke to the west'ard, the sun just risin'. But it came to me that mebbe a great steamer like her wouldn't like it to be held up by a couple o' Grand Bank trawlers in a dory, an' I mentions that to Jack there, but Jack says: 'You know how they all want to know aboard the vessel, 'specially the cook.'"
The cook looked up to say dejectedly: "I'd ha' forgiven you."
"Jack handed me his oil jacket for a signal o' distress, an' I lashes it to the blade of an oar an' lashes th' oar to a for'ard thwart an' sits down an' waits.
"Along she comes, an' she cert'nly was the grand sight comin'. The len'th an' height of her, and a wave to her bow an' stern would swamp a dory! An' her bridge! Miles away 'twas high as some flyin' thing. On she comes a-roarin'—twenty-six knots, no less. An' almost atop of us she stops. An' I looks up at her, an' a gold-braided lad in blue he leans over the side rail o' th' bridge an' he says: 'What's wrong with you chaps?'
"An' I looks up an' says: 'Who won?'
"An' he says: 'What d'y'mean—who won?'
"An' I says: 'God, man! where you been the last few days ashore? Who won th' fight?'
"A couple other gold-braided lads 'd joined the first, an' behind them four or five rail-polishers was bobbin' up an' down. An' then came a fat-whiskered lad an' bustles all the others out o' his way, an' one o' the others hands him a little megaphone, an' he leans over the rail an' he says: 'You Yankee beggars, do I understand that you're holdin' up a ship of our class, and we, bearin' the roy'l mails, to ask who won a bloody prize-fight?'
"An' I says: 'Ferget y'ur class an' y'ur roy'l mails—who won th' fight?'
"There was a couple o' hundred o' passengers mebbe by this time along the top rail—men an' women, in night-dresses an' bath-robes the women, the men in Chinese trousers they looked like to me. An' a lad in a blue one of 'em he sings out: 'There's sporting blood for you!' an' he grabs another lad in a pink one an' says: 'Look—those two down there want to know who won the fight'; an' then sings out to us: 'Say, you're all right, you two?' An' just then the whiskered one on the bridge, he sings out—what was it he said, Jack?"