this land of ours bein' a free republic where princes don't grow.
Still, it's a nice name, Scraggs, old tarpot--more particular
since I thought it up in a hurry. Eh, what?"

"Halvorsen," cried Captain Scraggs.

The lone deckhand emerged from a hole in the freight forward
whither he had retreated to escape the vegetable barrage put over
by Captain Scraggs when McGuffey left the ship. "Aye, aye, sir,"
he boomed.

"All hands below to the galley!" Scraggs shouted. "While we're
waitin' for this here towboat I'll brew a scuttle o' grog to
celebrate the discovery o' real seafarin' talent. Gib, my _dear_
boy, I'm proud of you. No matter what happens, I'll never have no
other navigatin' officer."

"Don't crow till you're out o' the woods," the astute Gibney
warned him.




CHAPTER VI


In the office of the Red Stack Tug Boat Company, Captain Dan
Hicks, master of the tug _Aphrodite_; Captain Jack Flaherty,
master of the _Bodega_, and Tiernan, the assistant superintendent
on night watch, sat around a hot little box stove engaged in that