“Say, yew,” he said; and the captain started into wakefulness. “Dew yew happen to know anything about a steamboat named the Oceanic, hey?”
“She ain’t no steamboat,” replied the captain. “She’s a tugboat, same as this, only bigger.”
“More’n ten times es big, ain’t she?” asked Nick.
“Ay, ay; more than twenty.”
“Well, that air is th’ Holstein heifer I’m a-lookin’ for.”
“She is, eh? What do you want of her? She ain’t no threshing machine. She couldn’t pull a plow or break a three-year-old steer.”
“Right you be, mister; right you be. She’s most broke me, just the same. Say!”
“Well?”
“Do yew happen to know where she is?”
“Ay, ay. Down at Quarantine.”