"Ain't you glad you don't have to go out sounding?"
Tom was passing on, but he quickly turned, and said,—
"Now just for that, you can go and get the sounding-pole yourself. I was going after it, but I 'd see you in Halifax, now, before I 'd do it."
"Who wants you to get it? I don't. It 's in the sounding-boat."
"OH, HOW AWFUL."
"It ain't either. It 's been new-painted; and it 's been up on the ladies cabin two days, drying."
I flew back, and shortly arrived among the crowd of watching and wondering ladies just in time to hear the command:
"Give way, men!"
I looked over, and there was the gallant sounding-boat booming away, the unprincipled Tom presiding at the tiller, and my chief sitting by him with the sounding-pole which I had been sent on a fool's errand to fetch. Then that young girl said to me,—
"Oh, how awful to have to go out in that little boat on such a night! Do you think there is any danger?"
I would rather have been stabbed. I went off, full of venom, to help in the pilot-house. By and by the boat's
