Page:Barbour--For the freedom from the seas.djvu/51

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THE LONELY REEF

your picture in the paper, but it don't get you much else!"

The Wanderer left Dumpling Rock Light on her starboard and swung her bow more to the west By nine o'clock, down in the "forecastle," they were predicting a visit to New York or Brooklyn, and Perry, first-class shipfitter, was licking his lips in anticipation.

"I've got friends down there," he said, half closing his eyes and swaying ecstatically back and forth on the edge of a bunk in time to the rocking of the boat. "They'll ask me to dinner. There'll be chicken, like as not, and lots of pie. Maybe two or three kinds of pie." He looked around to see how the announcement affected the others and was disappointed. "Maybe lemon pie with suds atop," he added desperately.

Lanky Staples grunted. "You can have all the pie you want," he said. "Me for a real feed on Broadway. I know the place, too. A stack of wheats as high as that——" He held his hands some fourteen inches apart—"and about a pint of maple syrup, and two or three cups of real coffee, not the stuff Spuds gives us——"

"Yeah, I know the place, too," interrupted the cook sarcastically. "You get a couple of flies in the syrup an' they don't charge you a cent for

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