“Good avenin’ to you, Captain Griffith,” the policeman answered, in a very different tone from the one he had used in speaking to the boy. “It’s one of them loafin’ wharf rats I’ve caught among your bales of hemp, sir. But I’ll put him where he won’t be sn’akin’ around the wharves for one while, sure.”
“Why, this is no wharf rat, officer,” the newcomer said, taking the boy by the shoulder and turning him around under the lamp to have a better view of him. “He looks like a respectable boy. What were you doing on the wharf, my boy?”
“I went there to sleep between two of the bales, sir,” the boy replied, “because I had nowhere else to go.”
“Well, that’s no crime,” said the man; “we all have to sleep somewhere, I suppose. I think I wouldn’t lock him up just for that, officer. He’s a decent-looking boy, and I can give him a place to sleep aboard the ship. It’s no wonder a youngster hunts a warm place on such a night as this.”
“Af ye think best, Captain,” the policeman readily answered, releasing his hold on the boy’s arm. “It’s in luck ye are, bye, that Captain Griffith of the North Cape put in a good word for ye, or ye’d a been in a cell by this toime. Then I lave the bye with you, Cap’n.”
“Very good,” said the Captain. “Good night, officer; you’ll have cold work to-night. Come along, my boy.”
The next minute the boy was retracing his steps through the tunnel, no longer a prisoner, but sure of a warm place to pass the night. He had no time to wonder why it was that the captain of a freight steamer had so much influence with the Brooklyn police; and no matter how much he had wondered he could hardly have guessed the truth, that every time the North Cape lay at Martin’s Stores policeman McSweeny received a five-dollar tip for keeping extra watch over her at night. The big patrolman was too shrewd not to oblige his patron whenever he could.
Captain Griffith led the way up an inclined gangway to a lower part of the deck, then up an iron ladder to a higher deck amidships, then down a companionway to the snug little cabin of the North Cape, where he turned up the big cabin lamp that had been burning dimly. That done, he threw off his overcoat, sat down in a revolving-chair at the head of the cabin table, and looked at the boy for several minutes as if he intended to look right through him, clothes and all.
What he saw standing by the cabin table, hat in hand, was a manly-looking boy of about sixteen or seventeen, perhaps a little large for his age, strong of build, with a good honest face and bright bluish-gray eyes, and wavy dark brown hair, and hands and face bronzed by the sun.
“No place to sleep, eh?” the Captain asked, at length.