"How'm I goin' to smoke without a pipe?" says Bill. "That's so," says Mr. Whelan, an' goes behind the counter an' pulls down a couple o' boxes of brier pipes. "With a middlin' good hook to the stem, if you don't mind," says Bill. Mr. Whelan passes over the best make of French brier. Bill held it up. "She looks all right." He put it between his teeth. "An' she feels all right." He sticks it into his shirt. "An' I guess she'll smoke all right." He steps to the door an' picks up the old coat. "What good it done him to wipe his feet on my coat, I dunno," he says. Then he turns back. "About Wallie, Mr. Whelan?" "Why, Bill," says Mr. Whelan, "when he gets back from school of course he'll get down the chart to look up all those countries you passed on the way back from Yunzano, and o' course we'll have to make a correction or two in your jography." "O' course," says Bill. "I useder have a good mem'ry once, but"--he taps his head--"gettin' old, gettin' old, Mr. Whelan. That coat now--it sure did look like the cut o' the coat I used to wear on the _Tropic Zone_. And the pipe!" an' old Bill gazes mournful-like across East River to Brooklyn, an' turns again an' says: "A good boy, your boy, Mr. Whelan--no evil suspicions o' people in his heart. An', as my old capt'n o' the _Tropic Zone_ useder quote fr'm the Bible to me: 'It's they shall inherit all there is that's wuth inheritin'.'" An' then Bill heaved another sigh, and put on his old coat, an' went shufflin' up South Street, on the side away from Spiegel's. One Wireless Night Cahalan, of the many voyages, had been reading of the latest marine near-disaster and the part played therein by the ship's wireless man; but refused to be impressed. "The slush the papers print sometimes!" he snorted. "Here's this now about this SOS fellow--all these papers trying to make out what a wonder he was, as if it took a wizard to keep pumping out three letters till somebody heard you. And a hero, too!" "Why not--he stood by his key, didn't he?" "Sure he did. And if you and me were wash-women we'd probably stand by our wash-tubs, wouldn't we? If there was no more danger keeping on washing than standing around doing nothing, we surely would, wouldn't we? But nobody'd think of calling us heroes for it, would they? That SOS man now--if he didn't want to stand by his key he could 've jumped overboard--it was only a thousand miles to shore. So he stood by his key and eased his mind by having something to do, which, of course, makes him a hero." "It's a great thing just the same, the wireless."