from Providence, slid against her pier in Jersey City, and the crew
with jocular shouts made the hawsers fast to the bitts. Some months
before, the _Hydrographer_ had stumbled across a lumber-laden schooner,
abandoned in good condition off Fire Island, and had towed her into
port. The courts had awarded goodly salvage; and the tug's owners,
filled with the spirit of the season, had sent a man to the pier to
announce that at the office each of the crew would find his share of
the bounty, and a little extra, in recognition of work in the company's
interest.

"Dan," said the Captain, as the young man entered the pilot-house in
his well-fitting shore clothes, "you ought to get a pot of money out of
this; now don't go ashore and spend it all tonight. You bank most of
it. Take it from me--if I'd started to bank my money at your age, I
would be paying men to run tugboats for me now."

"Oh, I've money in the bank," laughed Dan. "I'll bank most of this;
but first I'm going to lay out just fifty dollars, which ought to buy
about all the Christmas joy I need. I was going to Boston to shock
some sober relations of mine, but I've changed my mind. About seven
o'clock this evening you'll find me in a restaurant not far from
Broadway and Forty-second Street; an hour later you'll locate me in the
front row of a Broadway theatre; and--better come with me, Captain
Bunker."

"No, thanks, Dan," said the Captain. "If you come with _me_ over to
the house in Staten Island about two hours from now, you'll see just
three little noses pressed against the window pane--waiting for daddy
and Santa Claus." The Captain's big red face grew tender and his eyes
softened. "When you get older, Dan," he added, "you'll know that