neighbourhood. In anticipation of the necessity for replying to
this welcome sound, Captain Scraggs and Mr. Gibney had, for the
past two hours, busied themselves getting up another head of
steam in the _Maggie's_ boilers, repairing the whistle, and
splicing the wires of the engine room telegraph. Like the wise
men they were, however, they declined to sound the _Maggie's_
siren until the tugs were quite close. Even then, Mr. Gibney
shuddered, but needs must when the devil drives, so he pulled the
whistle cord and was rewarded with a weird, mournful grunt, dying
away into a gasp.

"Sounds like she has the pip," Jack Flaherty remarked to his
mate.

"Must have taken on some of that dirty Asiatic water," Dan Hicks
soliloquized, "and now her tubes have gone to glory."

Immediately, both tugs kicked ahead under a dead slow bell,
guided by a series of toots as brief as Mr. Gibney could make
them, and presently both tug lookouts reported breakers dead
ahead; whereupon Jack Flaherty got out his largest megaphone and
bellowed: "_Yankee Prince_, ahoy!" in his most approved fashion.
Dan Hicks did likewise. This irritated the avaricious Flaherty,
so he turned his megaphone in the direction of his rival and
begged him, if he still retained any of the instincts of a
seaman, to shut up; to which entreaty Dan Hicks replied with an
acidulous query as to whether or not Jack Flaherty thought he
owned the sea.

For half a minute this mild repartee continued, to be interrupted