The shrimper glided on, and a tramp steamer, going dead slow, just shaved past the musical barge. Its master roared derisively from the bridge:
"'Ullo, barge, ahoy! Wot yer got there? Punch and Judy show aboard?"
Which cost Cap'n Pigg a nasty twinge. He had always prided himself on his seaman-like ways, and to proceed thus, down the great river, like a mountebank, or a Cockney out on a Bank Holiday, hurt his feelings more than he could say.
Yet another insult was to be hurled at the Saucy Sally, for "Jacksonville," with its weird human chorus, having been turned on—when the "Ha! Ha! Ha!" rang out on the ears of a passing tug's captain, that outraged gentleman, thinking he was being personally derided, shouted, as the tide swept them out of sight:
"Yah! 'Oo yer larfin' at? Set o' bloomin' monkeys!"
But the gramophone was certainly playing a useful part in warning others off the Saucy Sally, down that fog-laden river. And, when, at the end of their day's slow journey, they let go their anchor, the "Washington Post" was again nasally shrieking out its march-time glories.
The mate stopped the machine and carried it tenderly below, then, returning to the deck, he observed.
"Good job as we 'ad the grammarphone aboard, Cap'n."
Cap'n Pigg swallowed a lump in his throat, and looked like a child confronted with a dose of nauseous medicine, as he gruffly replied:
"It's better n' nothin' when yer wants a row made."