"I don't care a fig for Cantwell, personally," replied Scott. "It is the principle of the thing that I'm looking after. I know that Cantwell is unpopular in the steerage as well as in the cabin. But there's a conspiracy against him. Just as soon as he had earned his rank, the fellows in the cabin put their heads together to cheat him out of it. I was appointed on the committee, and they called a meeting in the cabin, where I was not allowed to go, to prevent me from attending. Was that fair?"
"Right! Besides, I want those swells in the cabin to know that we are a power."
"But they came to us before the meeting on the island," suggested one of the group.
"Yes; just so. But what did they come for? To know if we approved the plan? Not a bit of it. The plan was cooked up in the cabin. They came to us just as the politicians go to the dear people--for votes. They argued, talked, and begged for our votes at the meeting. By and by they will get up a plan by which no fellow shall be promoted from the steerage to the cabin. Cantwell and Victory! That's my motto."
"I say, Scott, don't you think it is absurd for us to vote for the most unpopular fellow in the ship?" asked Wainwright.
"No, I don't. He's the only fellow in the cabin that is not in the ring, and therefore the only one we can vote for. Don't you see it?"
"I don't want to vote against Captain Lincoln," another objected. "He is a first-rate fellow, and a good sailor."
"But Lincoln went in for this plan, was present at the meeting, and voted in favor of it," replied Scott. "I like Lincoln as well as any fellow, but I don't like this trying to keep any one out of the place he has fairly earned."
This was only a specimen of the electioneering which was going on in a dozen different places in Åbo at the same time. Only a few of the students entered the cathedral, and not many of them could tell, when they returned to the squadron, whether the streets of the town were broad or narrow, or whether the houses were one or two stories high. While the seamen were at work for Cantwell, the officers were speaking a good word for Captain Lincoln, whom they desired to reëlect to his present position.
At six o'clock most of the students were in the vicinity of the bridge, ready to repair to the boats when the boatswains gave the signal. Dr. Winstock and Lincoln were at the hotel on the quay called the Society's House, which is said to be the most northern one in the world. Students were arriving in the droskies, which many of them had employed for the sake of a ride; and when they came to pay their fare there were many amusing scenes, for neither party understood a word of the language of the other. Most of the students, too, had changed their Swedish money into Russian in Stockholm, and were unprovided with Finnish currency, for they supposed that Russian money was current in Finland. The drivers would not take the rubles and copecks, and some very cheerful rows ensued. But the principal, with Professor Badois--who spoke Swedish--at his elbow, interfered, and paid the fares. The students embarked, the line of boats was formed, and the squadron moved down the river, with half of Åbo on the quay, gazing in solemn silence at the departure of the strange visitors, for as such they certainly regarded them. In less than an hour the boats were alongside the vessels to which they belonged, and were soon hoisted up to the davits.