Page:Ralph Paine--The praying skipper.djvu/199

Rh in the fust vessel we met, and was willin' to shove their turns aside, but I told 'em it was my last cruise, and I was goin' to see her through to the finish. So we've lots of time to talk pilotin' together. What was the most remarkable experience ever I had? Pshaw, that sounds like a full-rigged reporter, sonny, really it does.

"Well, I never got drownded boardin' a vessel, but I once fell afoul of a skipper that was a worse blunderin' idjit than you've been. It may sound kinder comfortin' to you. About fifty miles off the Capes, I dumb aboard an Italian bark. Her captain said he was bound for Wilmington, and would I take him in? He got a tow-boat at the Breakwater, and we were goin' up the river all right, when plumb by accident this benighted Dago imparted to me that he was bound for Wilmington, North Caroliny. 'Great Scott! You dodgasted lunatic,' says I, 'you're pretty nigh up to Wilmington, Delaware.' He went crazier than ever, and put about for sea after I showed him on the chart where he was at. He had been runnin' by dead-reckonin', and didn't