An hour later, still in my cab and stationed at the shore end of the
new pier, the pilot arrived. Anything more unlike a pilot I could
not have imagined. Here was no blue-jacketed, weather-beaten son of
the sea, but a soft-spoken gentleman, for all the world the type of
successful business man one meets in all the clubs. He introduced
himself immediately, and I invited him to share my freezing cab with
Possum and the baggage. That some change had been made in the
arrangements by Captain West was all he knew, though he fancied the
tug would come along any time.

And it did, at one in the afternoon, after I had been compelled to
wait and freeze for four mortal hours. During this time I fully made
up my mind that I was not going to like this Captain West. Although
I had never met him, his treatment of me from the outset had been, to
say the least, cavalier. When the Elsinore lay in Erie Basin, just
arrived from California with a cargo of barley, I had crossed over
from New York to inspect what was to be my home for many months. I
had been delighted with the ship and the cabin accommodation. Even
the stateroom selected for me was satisfactory and far more spacious
than I had expected. But when I peeped into the captain's room I was
amazed at its comfort. When I say that it opened directly into a
bath-room, and that, among other things, it was furnished with a big
brass bed such as one would never suspect to find at sea, I have said
enough.

Naturally, I had resolved that the bath-room and the big brass bed
should be mine. When I asked the agents to arrange with the captain
they seemed non-committal and uncomfortable. "I don't know in the
least what it is worth," I said. "And I don't care. Whether it