"Yes, I don't more'n 'arf like it," returned the Cap'n uneasily. "My nerves arn't quite what they was. An' a fog's a thing as I never could abide."
On glided the Saucy Sally, almost the only one on the great water way which spoke not, in the midst of a babel of confusing sounds. Syrens whooped, steam whistles shrieked hoarsely; the raucous voices of fog-horns proclaimed the whereabouts of scores of craft, passing up and down the river; but the trim-built barge slid noiselessly along, ghost-like, in the dun-colored "smother," giving no intimation of her proximity.
Then it was that Mr. Bob Topper's moment for action arrived. In casual tones, he observed to the Skipper:
"Pity, we ain't got something as'll make a sound o' some kind, so's to let people know as we 're a-comin'."
Cap'n Pigg said nothing: but the anxiety deepened perceptibly in his face.
"Where the blank blank are yer comin' to?" roared the voice of another bargeman, as, tooting loudly on a fog-horn, one of the "Medway flyers," shaved past them.
"Near thing, that," observed the mate, calmly.
Cap'n Pigg went a shade paler beneath the tan on his weather-beaten face.
"Cuss 'im! careless 'ound!" he muttered. "Might a' sunk us."
"'Ad no proper lookout, I expect," returned Mr. Topper, "even if 'e 'ad, 'e couldn't see anything, and we got no fog-'orn to show 'em where we was, yer see."