Blow The Man Down. Holman Day
the dinghy, and they rowed him away through the fog. It was a touchy job, picking his way through that murk. He stood up, leaning forward holding to his taut tiller-ropes, and more by ears than his eyes directed his course. A few of the anchored craft, knowing that they were in the harbor roadway, clanged their bells lazily once in a while. Yacht tenders were making their rounds, carrying parties who were paying and returning calls, and these boats were avoiding each other by loud hails. Small objects loomed largely and little sounds were accentuated.
The far voice of an unseen joker announced that he could find his way through the fog all right, but was afraid he had not strength enough to push his boat through it.
But Mayo knew his waters in that harbor, and found his way to the wharf. His real difficulties confronted him at the village telegraph office. The visiting yachtsmen had flooded the place with messages, and the flustered young woman was in a condition nearly resembling hysteria. She was defiantly declaring that she would not accept any more telegrams. Instead of setting at work upon those already filed she was spending her time explaining her limitations to later arrivals.
Captain Mayo stood at one side and looked on for a few moments. A gentle nudge on his elbow called his attention to an elderly man with stringy whiskers, who thus solicited his notice. The man held a folded paper gingerly by one corner, exhibiting profound respect for his minute burden.
“You ain't one of these yachting dudes—you're a skipper, ain't you?” asked the man.
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, then, I can talk to you, as one officer to another—and glad to meet one of my own breed. I'm first mate of the schooner Polly. Mr. Speed is my name.”
Captain Mayo nodded.
“And I need help and advice. This is the first tele-graft I ever had in my hands. I'd rather be aholt of an iced halyard in a no'easter! I've been sent ashore to telegraft it, and now she says she won't stick it onto the wire, however it is they do the blasted trick.”
Captain Mayo had already noticed that the messengers from the yachts were killing time by teasing the flustered young woman; it was good-humored badinage, but it was effectively blocking progress at that end of the line.
He felt a “native's” instinctive impulse to go to the relief of the young woman who was being baited by the merrymakers; the responsibility of his own errand prompted him to help her clear decks. But he waited, hoping that the yachtsmen would go about their business.
“From the Polly, Mr. Speed?” he inquired, amiably. “Is the Polly in the harbor? I didn't notice her in the fog.”
“Reckon you know her, by the way you speak of her,” replied the gratified Mr. Speed.
“I ought to, sir. She was built at Mayoport by my great-grandfather before the Mayo yards began to turn out ships.”
“Well, I swanny! Be you a Mayo?”
The captain bowed and smiled at the enthusiasm displayed by Mr. Speed.
“By ginger! that sort of puts you right into our fambly, so to speak!” The mate surveyed him with interest and with increasing confidence. “I'm in a mess, Cap'n Mayo, and I need advice and comfort, I reckon. I was headed on a straight tack toward my regular duty, and all of a sudden I found myself jibed and in stays, and I'm there now and drifting. Seeing that your folks built the Polly, I consider that you're in the fambly, and that Proverdunce put you right here to-night in this telegraft office. Do you know Cap'n Epps Candage?”
Mayo shook his head.
“Or his girl, Polly, named for the Polly?”
“No, I must confess.”
“Well, it may be just as well for ye that ye don't,” said Oakum Otie, twisting his straggly beard into a spill and blinking nervously. “There I was, headed straight and keeping true course, and then she looked at me and there was a tremble in her voice and tears in her eyes—and the next thing I knowed I was here in this telegraft place with this!” He held up the folded paper and his hand shook.
Captain Mayo did not understand, and therefore he made no remarks.
“There was a song old Ephrum Wack used to sing,” went on Mr. Speed, getting more confidential and making sure that the other men in the room were too much occupied to listen. “Chorus went:
“I ain't afeard of the raging sea,
Nor critters that's in it, whatever they be.
But a witch of a woman is what skeers me!
“There I've been, standing by Cap'n Epps in the whole dingdo, and she got me one side and looked at me and says a few things with a quiver in her voice and her eyes all wet and shiny and”—he paused and looked down at the paper with bewilderment that was rather pitiful—“and I walked right over all common sense and shipboard rules and discipline and everything and came here, fetching this to be stuck on to the wire, or whatever they do with telegrafts. But,” he added, a waver in his tones, “she is so lord-awful pretty, I couldn't help it!”
Still did Captain Mayo refrain from comment or question.
“The question now is, had I ought to,” demanded Mr. Speed. “I'm taking you into the fambly on my own responsibility. You're a captain, you're a native, and I need good advice. Had I ought to?”
“I'm afraid you'll have to excuse me, sir. The matter seems to be private, and, furthermore, I don't know what you're talking about.”
“She says it's to the milliner so that the milliner will hold the job open. But I'm suspicioning that it's roundabout to the beau that's in love with her. That's the style of women. Cap'n Epps shanghaied her to get her away from that fellow. Now she has got it worked around so that she is going back. But there's a beau in it instead of a milliner. She wouldn't be so anxious to get word to a milliner. That's my idee, and I reckon it's yours, too.”
“I really have no ideas on the subject,” returned Captain Mayo. “But if you have promised a young lady to send a telegram for her I would certainly keep that promise if I were in your place.”
The next moment he regretted his rather impetuous advice, for Mr. Speed slapped the paper against a hard palm and blurted out: “That's all I wanted! Course and bearings from an a-number-one adviser. New, how'll I go to work to send this thing?”
“I have been figuring on that matter for the last few minutes, myself,” acknowledged the captain. “It's about time to have a little action in this place.”
He was obliged to elbow his way through the group of men who surrounded the telegraph operator. Oakum Otie followed on his heels, resolved to study at close range the mystery of telegraphing, realizing what he needed for his own instruction.
“These telegrams are important and they must go at ore, madam,” Mayo informed the flustered young woman.
“I can't send them. I am bothered so much I can't do anything,” she stammered.
“Oh, forget your business, skipper,” advised one of the party.
“It is not my business, sir.” He laid the packet of messages before the operator on her little counter and tapped his finger on them. “They must go,” he repeated.
“In their turn,” warned the yachtsman, showing that he resented this intrusion. “And after the party is over!”
“I intended to confine my conversation to this young lady,” said Mayo. He turned and faced them. “But I have been here long enough to see that you gentlemen are interfering with the business of this office. Perhaps your messages are not important. Mine are.”
The yachtsman was not sober nor was he judicious. “Go back to your job, young fellow,” he advised. “You are horning in among gentlemen.”
“So am I,” squawked Mr. Speed, with weather eye out for clouds of any sort.
Captain