them spiles to you.'

"Then inspiration seized me. My soul riz up and grappled with the
crisis, for right under my mit, coiled, suggestive and pleadin', was
one of the tug's heavin' lines, 'bout a three-eighths size. I slips
a runnin' knot in the end and divides the coils, crouchin' behind the
deck-house till we come abeam of him, then I straightened, give it a
swinging heave, and the noose sailed up and settled over him fine and
daisy.

"I jerked back, and Oily Heegan did a high dive from Rush Street that
was a geometrical joy. He hit kind of amateurish, doin' what we used
to call a 'belly-buster' back home, but quite satisfyin' for a maiden
effort, and I reeled him in astern.

"Your Chicago man ain't a gamey fish. He come up tame and squirting
sewage like a dissolute porpoise, while I played him out where he'd
get the thrash of the propeller.

"'Help,' he yells, 'I'm a drownding.'

"'Ten dollars and costs," says I, lettin' him under again. 'Do you
know who you're drinkin' with this time, hey?'

"I reckon the astonishment of the mob was equal to Heegan's; anyhow
I'm told that we was favoured with such quietness that my voice
sounded four blocks, simply achin' with satisfactions. Then
pandemonium tore loose, but I was so engrosed in sweet converse I
never heard it or noticed that the 'Detroit' had slid through the
draw by a hair, and we was bound for the blue and smilin' lake.