Hundreds of heads appeared over the rails, and the comments which ran through the crowd sounded above the wash and swish of beating water.
“Where are you bound, Captain Bunderley?” asked the master of the whaleback.
“We are just out on a pleasure jaunt and intend to return to Kenosha at once!” yelled Uncle Ralph.
“Good, Bunderley! I’m going to introduce you to Judge Hampton, of Milwaukee.”
Captain Phillips indicated a gentleman at his side.
“A well-known man, too. His term of office recently expired, but everybody still calls him Judge,” commented the skipper, the next instant replying in his bluff and hearty fashion.
Judge Hampton, a rather elderly man, holding his eye-glasses in one hand and a paper in the other, looked down upon them gravely.
“Captain Bunderley,” he began, in much the same tone of voice as he might have used in charging a jury, “a wireless message has just reached me”—he waved the paper—“stating that my presence in Milwaukee is needed at once. Would it be possible for you to land me in Kenosha? The matter is of very great importance.”
“Certainly I can, Judge,” responded Uncle Ralph, politely.
“I shall be most heartily obliged to you.”