Page:The Wireless Operator with the U.S. Coast Guard.djvu/119

 could read all he was sending. He was about to add more, when he saw the lieutenant and the doctor step on deck. So he said good-bye, thanked the operator for his courtesy, and joined the little group from the Iroquois.

The more he saw of the freighter, the more he was pleased with his own little boat. The Viking’s wireless did not compare with the equipment of the Iroquois, any more than the rest of the boat compared with the cutter for comfort and looks. If there was anything lacking to make Henry sure of the difference, he found it.when the doctor went into the forecastle, to treat a sick sailor.

Henry went, too, but he did not remain long. The frightful smell in the crew’s quarters almost sickened him. Everything was dirty and foul and disorderly. Henry knew that in the crew’s quarters on the Iroquois, though there was not much room, and there was more or less odor from the cook’s galley, at least everything was scrupulously neat and spotlessly clean. All that he saw made Henry the more certain that he had chosen wisely in planning to get into the Coast Guard service. And when he stepped to the deck and found himself at close quarters with the crew, he knew he had made no mistake. Some American sailors might be “tough,” he thought, but they were a million times more desirable as shipmates than these unintelligible Orientals.