begin again--there was great shippin' on the lakes--better sell out a
hundred wreckin' plants than be so much apart, for it's terrible to be
comin' from the sea and never find the woman afore ye. But she
telegraphed to wait, she would be home soon, and she wanted to see me,
too, about something partic'lar. That was the night before the Portland
breeze--in the year o' the war with Spain--yes, '98 that would be, the
year the _Portland_ went down on Middle Bank with all on board. A
foolish loss that, and nobody ever went to jail for it; but it's mostly
that way, nobody sufferin' for it--but the families o' the lost
ones--when passenger ships go down at sea.

There was half a dozen steamboat firms telegraphin' and telephonin' the
morning after that storm, and I had to leave without waitin' till she
got home. There was a wreck off Cape Cod, and that kept me away a week,
and I was hurryin' back by way of Boston. And I saw him--me hurryin' up
Atlantic Avenue to take the train and him headed for the docks. I hailed
him. There was a rumor--'twas in the papers--that I'd gone down with the
wreck I'd been workin' on off Cape Cod--Chatham way--but of course no
one who knew me well believed it. But he must've believed it,
for--"What, you!" he says--not even puttin' in the "Captain" that he
never before forgot. I missed that little word from him--and he didn't
look at me the same--him that had always such a friendly way with me. He
seemed to be in a great hurry, and so I left him without more talk. He
did not even tell me that the _Rameses_ was in the harbor and he leavin'
on her, but the thought of that came later.

I had to stop off at Newport, to get things started for another wreck
there, and that took me the rest of that day and the next, and then I
was all ready to take the night boat for New York, but my oldest boy
came hurryin' down the dock to me, and an old lady--no--not so old, but