Page:In a Steamer Chair and Other Stories.djvu/253

Rh "And how do you know he can't?" I asked.

But the purser would not listen to reason. He contended that a captain who had crossed the ocean hundreds of times, and for years and years had worked his way up, had just as big a sense of responsibility for his passengers and his ship and his cargo as any newspaper man in New York could have, and this palpably absurd contention he maintained all the way to Liverpool.

When a great ocean racer is making ready to put out to sea, there can hardly be imagined a more bustling scene than that which presents itself on the deck and on the wharf. There is the rush of passengers, the banging about of luggage, the hurrying to and fro on the decks, the roar of escaping steam, the working of immense steam cranes hoisting and lowering great bales of merchandise and luggage from the wharf to the hold, and here and there in quiet corners, away from the rush, are tearful people bidding good-by to one another.

The Arrowic and the Dartonia left on the same day and within the same hour, from wharfs that were almost adjoining each other. We on board the Arrowic could see the same bustle and stir on board the Dartonia that we ourselves were in the midst of.

The Dartonia was timed to leave about half an