XIII
In which many persons are surprised
THE barometer had been falling steadily all the afternoon. But nothing could lower the mercury of Captain Ponsonby’s good humor. By gad! He ’d made a hit! His name would be on the front pages of the papers that the pilot would bring on board to-morrow afternoon. So he had ordered half a dozen of those shilling cigars from the smoking-room and was making a day of it. Now as he strode up and down on the bridge, still smoking, the fact that a northeast storm was on its way did not worry him in the least, although he knew that from every direction other vessels were drawing nearer and nearer and that the Pavonia was in the direct course of the eastward bound steamers on the southern route.
“Going to be a wet night, Simmons!” he growled.
“Yes, sir,—we ought to be passing the198
