CAPTAIN GRUMMITT GETS WET The gateway to Sydney, by water, is said to be the most beautiful natural harbor in the world, and Dave leaned over the taffrail spellbound as the dawn dyed the sea a deep red. The rusty old tramp was only one of a hundred vessels that were threading their way into or out from Australia’s chief port. Birdlike sailing craft, crowded with canvas to catch the least puff of wind, drifted along in leisurely fashion; weather-beaten steamers from all parts of the world chugged towards their goal, sometimes ten thousand miles away; and a cloud of sea-birds, among them great fellows whose wing-tips seemed to stretch full five feet apart, crowded round the stern of the _Neptune_. “Well, my boy, what do you think of Sydney harbor?” said a voice at Dave’s shoulder. It was Captain Phelps who spoke. “It’s great, sir,” the junior deck-hand replied. “It is,” said the skipper; “but don’t you say that to a Melbourne man. They have no harbor to speak of at Melbourne, and the two places are powerfully jealous of one another. Sydney folk always start a conversation with a stranger by saying ‘Have you seen our harbor?’ and if it happens to be a Melbourne man they’re talking to, he says, ‘Nature made your harbor――why don’t you build a decent town on it?’ All the same, there’s many a time I’ve been thankful enough, when running before a snorter, to creep into this refuge, and I dare say the time will come when you’ll do the same after you get command. How are you getting on with your studies, eh? You’ve a lot to learn before you can hold a master’s certificate, you know.” Dave had kept up his reading until his books were lost on the _Kingfisher_, and he received a congratulatory word when he explained to Captain Phelps how far he had progressed. “That’s the style. Stick to it, youngster,” said the skipper, “and you’ll be pacing the bridge before long.” Tempest and Dave had renewed their wardrobe from the slop-chest, and still had enough money to draw in wages to give them time to look about when they got ashore. The first thing they did was to make inquiries about the boat they expected to find running to the South Sea Islands, and here they faced a disappointment. The company had only three vessels engaged in the trade, and they usually left at intervals of about six weeks. Two days before the _Neptune_ arrived at Sydney one of the three had sailed, and so Dave and his companion found they would have to spend forty or fifty days ashore waiting for the next one, called the _Manihiki_, to depart. Long before then they would be reduced to their last penny. “Well, what do you suggest?” Dave asked. “It seems to me,” Tempest replied, “that we shall be under the painful necessity of working, not being millionaires, but the problem is, at what? Some of the things I have seen men do ashore for a living would certainly not suit my constitution, and I wouldn’t recommend them for you.”