Page:Ralph Paine--The praying skipper.djvu/119

Rh crew to earth, from which they were instantly caught up, and borne on tossing shoulders to the stone steps of the nearest recitation hall. There they were held aloft, still struggling, while cheers greeted each by name.

the celebration programme would have been halting and inadequate if the Assistant Manager of the Yale Navy had not hurried to New Haven on an earlier train. He had been in the car with John Hastings, and took it for granted that the sweet-faced woman of the silvery hair must be his mother. He was plunging through the crowd on the stone steps, trying to rescue the oarsmen in order to head them toward the banquet hall, when beneath the arc light on the corner, a little way out of the tumult, he saw the timid lady for whom he had felt much sympathy. The Assistant Manager was ably fitted for his official task of looking after details, because he fairly boiled over with initiative, and with him to think was to