"'In the establishment we use boats to keep us out of the watther,' I responds, hunting for the papers out of me cap. 'The newspapers are full of rebukes for thim that rock boats to their own peril.'
"With that they all felt ashamed and picked up me papers and grunted at each other, tryin' to blame somebody else. And when I had me checks and me papers all safe again I smiled on thim and me bould Tad took heart. ''Tis not to tip the boat over,' says he, 'but to get it back on an even keel after a sea's capsized her--that is the point of the dhrill.' And we pulled ashore to dhry.
"Whiles we were sittin' on the sand drainin' the watther out of our shoes a small, brassy launch came down the bay, with many men and women on her little decks. Me bould Tad looked at her with half-shut eyes and snorted. 'Some day it will be the life-saving crew that must bring those ninnies back to their homes,' he says. 'The Pacific is nothing to fool with in a gasoline launch. 'Tis betther to be safe and buy your fish.' And we watched the launch chug by and out on the bar and to sea. I learned that she was the _Gladys_ by name and fetched tourists to the fishing grounds, nine miles down the coast.
"All the bhoys were respictful to me excipt young Carson, who recognized in me bould Mickey the man who had asked for a hundredweight of clams. He stared at me superciliously and refused to have speech with me, bein' ashamed, if I can judge of his youthful thoughts, of bein' in the same company with a fool.
"But I discovered that the gang was all bent on becomin' what they called second-class scouts, which they made plain to me was betther by one than a tenderfoot. But they niver mintioned the lackings of the dollar, bein' gintlemin. They wanted to know of me whether I thought that boatmanship and knowledge of sailing would be accipted be the powers instid of wisdom as to bird-tracks and intimacy with wild animals and bugs. And the heart of me opened, the youth of me came back; and I spoke to thim as one lad to another, with riference to me years in a steamer and the need of hard hands and a hard head.
"The ind of it was that they rolled across the sand to me side and we all lay belly down over a chart, which me bould Tad had procured after the manner of bhoys, and they explained to me how they knew the coast for twelve miles each side of Yaquina Bay, with the tides and currents all plain in their heads. And I was surprised at what the young scuts knew--God save thim!