Here, on this day, the wealthy towboat-owners and captains are wont to
distribute their largess to the boatmen as a mark of appreciation for
favors rendered,--a suggestion that future favors are expected,--and
here, also, punch of exalted brew is concocted and drunk.

An occasional flurry of snow swept down the street as Dan reached the
entrance. Murphy was out on the sidewalk directing the adornment of
his doorway with several faded evergreen wreaths, while inside, the
boatmen gathered closer around the genial potstove and were not sorry
that ice-bound rivers and harbor had brought their business to a
temporary standstill. They were discussing the morrow, which logically
led to a consideration of the ice-pack, among other things, and thence
to Cap'n Barney Hodge's ill luck.

"Take a hard and early winter," old Bill Darragh, the dean of the
boatmen, was saying, "then a thaw in the middle o' December, and then a
friz-up, and ye git conditions that ain't propitious, as ye may say,
fur towboatmen--nur fur us, neither."

"True fur ye," said "Honest Bill" Duffy. "Nigh half the tugs in the
harbor is in the Erie Basin with screw blades twisted off by the
ice-pack, or sheathin' ripped. And it's gittin' worse. They'll be
little enough money for us this year--an' I was countin' on a hunder to
pay a doctor's bill."

"Well, maybe you'll get more than you think," said Dan, whose words
always carried weight because he was mate of a deep-sea tug. "Captain
Barney Hodge's _Three Sisters_ was laid up yesterday; a three-foot
piece of piling bedded in an ice-cake got caught in her screw,