“‘What the divil do _you_ mean?’ says our Skipper, ‘by comin’ aboard this vessel?’ He’s about as quick a man to see a thing--that Tom O’Donnell--as ever I saw in my life. “‘What do I mean?’ says the man. ‘What do you mean by running that gaff into me the way you did?’ “‘Holy Mother!’ says the Skipper, ‘but will you listen to him? It’s gold medals we should be gettin’ from the Humane Societies for savin’ the life of him, and now it’s nothin’ but growling because we did save it.’ “‘Saved my life!’ sputters the light-house lad. ‘My boat was right there when I fell. Why, it ain’t your vessel’s length away now under the light’--the _Colleen_ was beginnin’ to slide away again--‘and I want you to know I c’n swim like a fish.’ “‘Then swim, ye divil ye, swim!’ says the Skipper quick’s a wink, and picks him up and heaves him over the rail. ‘Yes,’ says big Jerry, ‘swim, you lobster, swim!’ and he pushes him along with an oar he’d grabbed out the top dory. And he did swim, too. “And then the Skipper comes aft. ‘Who the divil,’ says he, ‘was to the wheel?’ and spots the little man, who was lookin’ more surprised than the light-keeper in the water. ‘And where’d you ever steer a vessel before?’ says the Skipper. “‘I dunno’s I did so very bad,’ answers the little man. ‘I used to be quartermaster on a harbor steamer once, and I kept her off the rocks.’ “The Skipper looked at him like he was a new kind of fish. ‘Indeed, was you now? And you kept her off the rocks? And did you ship for a fisherman or what?’ And the Skipper looks at him a little more, then laughs and takes the wheel himself. ‘Maybe,’ says he, ‘the insurance company would like it better if I took her the rest of the way out of the harbor myself. And I don’t want to lose her myself. She’s too good a vessel--the fastest and the ablest out o’ Gloucester. But go below now, boy, and have your supper.’ “Well, that passed by all right, but outside the harbor, off Minot’s, we ran foul of the _Superba_--that’s the new one, the latest spoon-bow model. He sees her comin’ and sways up, but she comes on and goes on by--goes on by nice and easy. ‘And she used to be a good vessel once,’ says Dick Mason, her skipper, to some of his gang standing aft. We could hear him--he meant us to hear him--‘of course, a good vessel once, the _Colleen Bawn_, but she’s been wracked so she can’t carry sail no longer.’