When William T. saw what was coming, he took a running long dive and overboard from the other end of the Happy Day. Wheezer stove in the heads of four or five more barrels of oil and dumped them over the side so's to make it easier for William clawing around in the seaway. When he came swimming aboard, he was wanting to know wasn't there any jobs that didn't require him to swaller any more oil—shovelling coal or working bilge-pumps, he didn't care. So we let him go down to the engine-room to help out Scoot.
We ought to have seen the morning papers before we did to enjoy what happened next. Captain Davis of the Niobe was to depart at daybreak to make another desperate attempt to save the oil-ship in the teeth of the storm, the morning papers said. And he did. We met him on our way back to Bayport, and he steamed around us two or three times. Then he steamed away for Westport. He didn't say a word himself, but she carried the most eloquent stern, the Niobe, that ever I looked at through glasses when she was steaming away.
The oil-ship was down by the head a trifle where the dynamite had loosened her bow-plates a little, but nothing to hurt. We got her into port all right.
But getting a salvaged ship into port don't always end a man's troubles. There was a slick young lawyer came to us. He said he'd like to handle our case. We asked what his charge would be, and he said: "Oh, that will be all right—I'll make my price to suit you boys." We said all right, go ahead, and "Now, boys," he says then, "what's the story? Give it to me straight."
I tells him the story. He rubs his hands and chuckles, and says: "Good! Great! Nothing to it—a pipe! But listen to me, boys. When you get up there in court, don't go trying to make any joke of it the same as you just done to me. Everything is all fixed up nicely for you to play heroes' parts. Here are all the newspaper accounts—look—of Captain Davies's heroic work and seamanship, as told by Captain Judkins, and of Captain Judkins's humane and heroic work as told by Davies. Even the crew—look—give out interviews of what heroes they were. And, lemme tell you, I've seen the Happy Day many a time, and I wouldn't go outside in her for a million dollars. Now play it up, play it up—the storm, the peril, your own heroic efforts, you know."
Which was all right to say; but imagine any human being getting up to tell of our trip and leave out the funny little parts, especially when we see Judkins sitting in a back bench listening, though he didn't listen too long. He all at once got up and didn't come back.
In the old days we'd have been awarded 50 or 60 per cent for our part, and she was a million-dollar ship with her cargo; but the insurance companies don't let any loose-footed seafarers put across anything like that these days. We got thirty thousand dollars for salving the ship, and ten thousand more for the loss of the Happy Day.
Our slick lawyer said we hadn't played it up right. "But never mind," he said; "I've been allowed full damages for the Happy Day and awards for your time and some of the risk you-all ran. There's twenty thousand for you boys."
Wheezer and Scoot looked at me, and I looked at the lawyer. "Twenty thousand? Don't you think it's too much for us?" I asks.
"Why," he says, "it is a lot o' money for you boys to be carrying away for one night's work. But I generally split it that way—fifty-fifty."