Dan Merrithew | Page 5

of piling bedded in an ice-cake got caught in her screw, and--zip! The
other fellows are feeling so good about it that I think they'll be apt to be

generous."
"We'll drink to Barney's bad health," said Darragh, raising his glass. "I
saw him half an hour gone. He looked like a dead man. Cap'n Jim
Skelly o' the John Quinn piloted Gypsum Prince inter her dock last
night. No one ever handled her afore but Cap'n Barney. An' the
Kentigern from Liverpool is due to-night. Skelly's layin' fur her too; an'
he'll git her. That'll take two vessels from Barney's private monopoly."
Darragh was right. The towboatmen had Captain Barney where they
wanted him, and they meant to gaff him hard. He had always been too
sharp for the rest, too good at a bargain, too mean; and what was more,
he was in every way the best towboatman that ever lived. No one liked
him; but the steamship-captains engaged his services for towing and
piloting, nevertheless, for the reason that they considered him a
disagreeable necessity, believing that no other tugboatman could serve
them so well.
As a matter of fact, there were several tugboat-captains hardly less
skilful than Captain Barney, and in the time of his idleness they bade
fair to secure not a few of his customers. It was an old saying that
Captain Barney, touched in his pocket, was touched in his heart and
brain also--they meant to touch him in just those places.
"I see him this morning," said Duffy, "when he heard that Cap'n Jim
Skelly 'd come in on the bridge of the Gypsum Prince. He was
a-weepin' and cursin' like a drunk. Hereafter he'll have to divide the
Gypsum, and she arrives reg'lar, too."
"And he'll lose the Kentigern to-night," laughed Dan. "Well, I don't
care. It'll do him good. I hope they put him out of business."
"Thankee, gents, for your Christmas wishes. I'm glad my friends are
with me." The words, in low, mournful cadence, came from the
doorway; and all eyes turning there saw the stout, melancholy figure of
Captain Barney, his great hooked nose falling dejectedly toward his
chin, his hawk eyes dull and sombre. He had been drinking; and as
Duffy made as though to throw a bottle at him, the fallen great man

turned and stumbled away.
A few minutes later Dan left the resort, faced the biting north wind, and
walked slowly up South Street. Somehow he could not get Captain
Barney out of his mind.
The year before, in violation of an explicit agreement, Captain Barney
had worked in with an outside rowboatman from West Street, towing
him to piers where vessels were about to dock. This, of course, got that
boatman on the scene in advance of the Battery men, who had only
their strong arms and their oars to depend upon. Thus the rival had the
first chance at the job of carrying the lines from the docking steamships
to men waiting on the pier to make them fast. Captain Barney received
part of the money which this boatman made. It was little enough, to be
sure, but no amount of money was too small for him. And so Dan, the
Battery boatmen being his friends, was glad to see Hodge on his
knees--yet he was the slickest tugboat-captain on earth.
Dan could not help admiring him for that; and now he could not
dismiss from his mind the pitiable picture which Murphy's doorway
had framed but a few minutes before. He tried to, for Dan was an
impressionable young fellow and was worrying too much about this
Christmas idea, endeavoring to solve his emotions, without bothering
about the troubles of a towboat-skipper who deserved all he got and
more.
All along the street were Christmas greens. The ship chandlers had
them festooned about huge lengths of rusty chains and barnacled
anchors and huge coils of hawser, and the tawdry windows of the dram
shops were hidden by them. A frowsy woman, with a happy smile upon
her face, hurried past with a new doll in her arms. Dan stopped a
minute to watch her.
Something turned him into a little toyshop near Coenties Slip and he
saw a tugboat deck-hand purchase a pitiful little train of cars, laying his
quarter on the counter with the softest smile he had seen on a man's
face in a twelvemonth.

"Something for the kid, eh?" said Dan rather gruffly.
"Sure," replied the deck-hand, and he took his bundle with a sort of
defiant expression.
He saw a little mother, a girl not more than twelve years old, with a
pinched face and a rag shawl about her shoulders, spend ten cents for a
bit of a doll and a bag of Christmas candy.
"Going to have