What happened next was my fault, not his. We stayed out there fishing in a blinding gale, the sea coming in in great rollers. Pretty soon the Luna Park tower was ’way around the corner. Either they had moved it or else our anchor was dragging. “Jake,” I said, “we’re tearing the bottom of the ocean all to pieces; it’s a shame. We’ll be off Rockaway in about ten minutes, if this keeps up.” “The boat’ll be all tore to pieces, you _mean_” he said, “and _we’ll_ be in the bottom of the ocean if this keeps up. We’re shipping water by the bucketful. Let’s get out of this.” So we hauled in the anchor and tried to get our power started, but it was too late. Our plug was short circuiting, the coil was gone plumb crazy, and most of the Atlantic Ocean seemed to be in the carburetor. The rest of it was on the floor. Besides all this, the pump was on a strike—shorter hours, I suppose. Kids, we were in one dickens of a fix. It was late afternoon and there we were blowing around the ocean, bailing to keep on top, and with the land moving farther and farther away all the time. By dusk the shore was just a misty line, that was all. Every wave that hit us, meant bailing like mad to keep our gunwale above water. We took off the muffler and used it to bail with. A dozen times we lighted our lantern and a dozen times the wind or the sea put it out. It was water-soaked, useless. I said, “Jake, it’s all up with us,” and he said he guessed it was. Boys, I’ve gone forty-eight hours without sleeping, in France. I’ve gone three days without food. I’ve seen a shell burst into smithereens ten feet from me. But I’d rather go through all that again, I’d rather play tennis and drink tea, even, than to go through another night like that. All night we couldn’t so much as see each other’s faces. Our arms were stiff. We just bailed, bailed, bailed and kept her from swamping. In the morning the weather eased up a little and if we had only had her running, she would have taken the seas all right. She’s a filthy little boat, but game. But an engine is never game; it’s always the boat that’s game. A gas engine is a natural born coward and a quitter. A hull will fight to the last. If our engine hadn’t lain down, we could have hit the sea crossways and we’d have skimmed over it like a car on a scenic railway. But the swell got us sideways and we swung like a hammock. Anyhow, we could ease up a little on the bailing and before the sun was well up, we were able to use the oar. We had only one, because the other one was carried away. But we managed to keep that little jitney head-on, and pretty soon we knew it wasn’t a case of drowning, but more likely a case of starving. There wasn’t a speck of land in sight. We might have been half way to Europe for all _I_ knew. Well, after a while Jake said, “What’s that? Looks like a log floating.”