"Whatever the Persians thought o' cats, this cat's off her now, Scoot," said Wheezer—"she's sure abandoned now," and went aboard.
"It looked hungry passing me," said Scoot, and called down to Billie T. to feed it a little lubricating oil on a shovel. "It's nourishing and fattening," says Scoot, "and we'll keep it aboard. Every seagoing ship should have one for luck."
Wheezer reported not another soul aboard the oil-ship; and, under the laws of the sea, that made her ours to do what we pleased with. And we had our own notions of how to work her off the bar. We broke out ten or a dozen barrels of oil and poured them over the troubled waters. Then I belted and bolted Wheezer into his diving-suit, and broke out our steam-drill—left over from the Weeping Annie—and Wheezer dropped over and began to bore holes under the bow of the oil-ship.
Scoot had never been shipmates with an oil-burner before, and he went below to get acquainted with this one. I was busy wiring charges of dynamite for what we had to do next, so to William T. was left the job of pumping air to Wheezer. Twice Wheezer came up, his cheeks bulging out when I unscrewed his helmet, to ask me to explain to William T. that pumping the air ahead of time and then resting up to wait till that was used up wasn't the way of it—not if Wheezer was to stay alive. Regular and steady, that was the word, said Wheezer.
Wheezer got all his holes bored and the dynamite planted in them. This was a lot of dynamite left over when we traded the Weeping Annie; we'd kept it in the hold of the Happy Day, which was another reason for Scoot to sleep aboard her nights. He said he wasn't going to let her blow up some night and no one on board to prove who did it.
When we were all ready on deck, Scoot said he guessed he'd take a chance on her engines. He would not bet on what would happen, but he guaranteed we'd get action of some kind, even if it was no more than a cylinder-head blown through the side of the ship, if we'd only come below and help him out. So we passed him this and that, turned this jigger and that jigger to his orders, and by and by he lights a row of jets and her engines turned all right.
"Any time now," says Scoot, and I touched off the dynamite, and what looked like a million cubic yards of mixed stuff comes splattering up from under her bow. William T., who was leaning over the bow to see how it worked, got most of the oil, that being on top. Then I gave Scoot the bells, he backed her engines, and off she came smooth and easy.
While William T. was picking the oil and sand and mud and sea-water out of his eyes and ears and nose and mouth, and complaining that somebody oughter tipped him off, I called to him to shift the Happy Day's line so she could drift astern of the ship. "And whatever yuh do, son, hang onter her line," Wheezer warned him. By this time William had shed his first independent views of things and was obeying orders fine; so when the Happy Day went whirling astern, William was hanging on to the end of the line. Down the deck he went skidding on his heels, and over the rail, still hanging on to the line.
Finding himself overboard, he climbed up on the Happy Day. By this time we were well off the bank in pretty good water, and I sung out to William that I would swing around and get him, and gave the necessary bells when the time came for Scoot to back her; but Scoot, I guess, wasn't yet full shipmates with his oil-burning machinery, for we kept right on going ahead till we went clean through and over the Happy Day.
I remember seeing the cat climbing up the hammer hoist when it saw what was coming and clawing into its place up top; and how when the Happy went under and the tall hoist careened over toward us, the cat made one flying leap on to the oil-ship's deck. When Scoot heard of that later, he said: "We'll name it Confucius—a wonderful, wise cat."