“I don’t want your line,” yelled the engineer. “I’m going ashore.”
“Come aboard!” shouted the captain imploringly, as they swept past again. “We can’t manage the engines.”
“Put her round again,” said the mate. “I’ll go for him with the boat. Haul her in, boy.”
The boat, which was dragging astern, was hauled close, and the mate tumbled into her, followed by the boy, just as the captain was in the middle of another circle-to the intense indignation of a crowd of shipping, large and small, which was trying to get by.
“Ahoy!” yelled the master of a tug which was towing a large ship. “Take that steam roundabout out of the way. What the thunder are you doing?”
“Picking up my engineer,” replied the captain, as he steamed right across the other’s bows, and nearly ran down a sailing-barge, the skipper of which, a Salvation Army man, was nobly fighting with his feelings.
“Why don’t you stop?” he yelled.
“’Cos I can’t,” wailed the skipper of the Bulldog, as he threaded his way between a huge steamer and a schooner, who, in avoiding him, were getting up a little collision on their own account.
“Ahoy, Bulldog! Ahoy!” called the mate. “Stand by to pick us up. We’ve got him.”
The skipper smiled in an agonised fashion as he shot past, hotly pursued by his boat. The feeling on board the other craft as they got out of the way of the Bulldog, and nearly ran down her boat, and then, in avoiding that, nearly ran down something else, cannot be put into plain English, but several captains ventured into the domains of the ornamental with marked success.