“The boy?” the old man interrupted. “Is he so? Well, can I be sort of lookin’ after him? I ’d take him under my wing with pleasure, perhaps teach him a thing or two, and try to keep him out o’ trouble.” My father was pleased, and accepted the old sailor’s offer; and he told him of his own experience in the navy, and they swapped yarns for half an hour. The old man had been a boatswain in the navy. He was only fifty-eight, he said. I don’t wonder he put it that way. The second mate had moved, and I looked up and saw the Helen Augusta, our largest tugboat, just about to make a landing at the end of the wharf. {23} I seized my father’s arm in a panic. He smiled. There was something infinitely protective in my father’s smile. “I ’m going down with you, Timmie, and come back in the tug. It ’s too wet to work, luckily, so it won’t make any difference to me, and I guess Cap’n Nelson ’ll let me go. Unless,” he added, looking at me suddenly, “you ’d rather not have me. Perhaps you ’d rather say good-bye here. If you would I ’d understand it.” I shook my head, and clung fast to his arm. I could not have spoken to save my life. The old sailor, my new friend, was rolling along beside us, his canvas bag over his shoulder and sticking out a foot or two fore and aft. He glanced at me and smiled, and we all trooped aboard the tug on to her upper deck, and the men filed down the ladder to a place where it was dry and warm. We were about to follow them when we were hailed from the pilot house. We obeyed the beckoning finger, and in the pilot house we found Captain Nelson and the captain of the tugboat, a silent, sour-faced man whose name I cannot now remember, although it was then very familiar to me. Another man was leaning on the windowsill, his head outside, and one hand grasping a spoke of the wheel. He shouted some orders, pulled the bell, and we backed for a minute against a stern hawser. Then he pulled the bell once, and the chug of the engine stopped; before the water had stopped its swirling past the side he pulled the bell again, the engine chugged once more, and the bows turned faster toward the harbor. I was looking out at the wharves through a glass covered with little fine drops of mist, and I saw one of the men on the wharf lift the bight of heavy line over the top of the mooring-pile and drop it into the water as we began to go ahead. The man at the wheel pulled the jingle bell, and the engine chugged faster, and I could hear little familiar noises from the engine, as though it had settled down for a day’s work. {24}