By this time most of our crew had left their high roosts and were crowding the lee rail to get aboard the _Niobe_; and Judkins says: "All right, men--go aboard." And all went aboard the tug, Judkins checking off every man by the ship's list as we passed him at the rail. And the _Niobe_ headed back to Bayport. On the run back to Bayport Judkins and Davies were alone in the cabin of the tugboat. I spent all that same way back trying to figure out their little game. I didn't feel too sure I had it right, but when the _Niobe_ hit the dock I went four bells and the jingle up the street looking for Wheezer, and found him where anybody in town could of a Wednesday or Saturday night: TERPSICHORE HALL 25 Cents for Gents--15 for Ladies There was the illuminated sign hanging out over the sidewalk so that even a drunken sailor couldn't miss it. You didn't have to haul Wheezer into any dry dock to see that his lines weren't laid down for speed, but his first rush, when I told him what was in sight, carried him clear to the head of the dock. "The salvage! O the lovely salvage! We'll get her off!" says Wheezer. "We'll charter a tug, hah?" I wasn't strong for chartering any tugs and let everybody know about it. We had no money to be chartering tugs, anyway, and, besides, if I had Judkins and Davies's little game sized up right, there'd be no loose tugs left to charter out of Bayport that night. "We'll make it in the _Happy Day_," I says. "The _Happy Day_!" says Wheezer; and then: "Well, all right--if you think she'll make it." We went down to tell Scoot, and found him reading from a book he was holding up before him with one hand and eating crackers and cheese and a smoked herring from a plate atop of a galley-stove with the other. "A wonderful, wonderful man, Confucius," says Scoot to Wheezer; and then seeing me, too: "What! Hasn't that oil-packet departed yet?" "Wonderful maybe, but stow him, whoever the loafer is, 'n' listen to me 'n' the captain," says Wheezer. And Scoot listens, and before I was half through he stows Confucius--a fine, fat volume, with a leaf turned down to mark the place--under his mattress. "I shall need a helper," says Scoot. "And also I think it will be wise for me to prepare some fresh applications of Leakitis if we are to put out to sea in this venerable ark to-night." Up to the Blue Light saloon there was always a bum or two looking for a bit of change. On the way there I passed the Bayport Hotel and saw that Captain Judkins and Captain Davies had already an admiring audience to listen to the disaster to the _Yucatan_.