"Read that!"
"'Doc' Wilson, of the Standard, will be down on afternoon train. Take him aboard and treat him right."
Young Wilson looked at the half mile of water between the schooner and the beach, and thought of trying to swim for it. But the bully-ragging tone of the pilot struck a spark of his latent pluck and he answered with some spirit:
"I'm mighty sorry you're so disappointed. My name is Wilson, James Arbuthnot Wilson, of the Standard. The order to join your boat was delivered to me. If there's been a mistake, and I'm so unwelcome, I'll have to put you to the trouble of setting me ashore again."
The innate hospitality of his kind smothered the pilot's first emotions, and he regretted his rudeness as he smote the lad on the back and shouted:
"All right, Jimmy Arbutus. I guess there's no great damage done. It's now or never for your newspaper, and if we can't carry the skipper, we'll get along with the mate of your outfit. And we'll give you a cruise to make your lead-pencil smoke. Tumble below and shake them natty clothes. The boat-keeper will fit you out with a pair of boots and a jumper."
Sore and abashed, with the hateful emotions of an intruder, Wilson crept below and faced another ordeal. In the pilots' roomy cabin, which ran half the length of the schooner, four men were changing their clothes and tidying up their bunks. One of them emerged from the confusion to yell at the invader's patent leather ties:
"Hello, Doc, you old pirate. Is that you? Glad to see you aboard. Well, I will be damned!"
His jaw dropped and he looked sheepish as a hurricane voice came through the open skylight:
"Don't hurt the kid's feelin's. I've done plenty of that. This is Jimmy Arbutus Wilson, apprentice to 'Doc,' and he's doin' the best he can. 'Doc' got stranded somewheres, and the lad is takin' his run. I don't fathom it a little bit, but what's the odds?"