He seemed to have two pairs of hands and a head of cast-iron, for, not content with blowing through a big conch-shell, he must needs stand up to it, swaying with the sway of the flat-bottomed dory, and send a grinding, thuttering shriek through the fog.  How long this entertainment lasted, Harvey could not remember, for he lay back terrified at the sight of the smoking swells.  He fancied he heard a gun and a horn and shouting.  Something bigger than the dory, but quite as lively, loomed alongside.  Several voices talked at once; he was dropped into a dark, heaving hole, where men in oilskins gave him a hot drink and took off his clothes, and he fell asleep.

When he waked he listened for the first breakfast-bell on the steamer, wondering why his state-room had grown so small.  Turning, he looked into a narrow, triangular cave, lit by a lamp hung against a huge square beam.  A three-cornered table within arm’s reach ran from the angle of the bows to the foremast.  At the after end, behind a well-used Plymouth stove, sat a boy about his own age, with a flat red face and a pair of twinkling gray eyes.  He was dressed in a blue jersey and high rubber boots.  Several pairs of the same sort of foot-wear, an old cap, and some worn-out woollen socks lay on the floor, and black and yellow oilskins swayed to and fro beside the bunks.  The place was packed as full of smells as a bale is of cotton.  The oilskins had a peculiarly thick flavor of their own which made a sort of background to the smells of fried fish, burnt grease, paint, pepper, and stale tobacco; but these, again, were all hooped together by one encircling smell of ship and salt water.  Harvey saw with disgust that there were no sheets on his bed-place.  He was lying on a piece of dingy ticking full of lumps and nubbles.  Then, too, the boat’s motion was not that of a steamer.  She was neither sliding nor rolling, but rather wriggling herself about in a silly, aimless way, like a colt at the end of a halter.  Water-noises ran by close to his ear, and beams creaked and whined about him.  All these things made him grunt despairingly and think of his mother.

“Feelin’ better?” said the boy, with a grin.  “Hev some coffee?” He brought a tin cup full and sweetened it with molasses.

“Isn’t there milk?” said Harvey, looking round the dark double tier of bunks as if he expected to find a cow there.

“Well, no,” said the boy.  “Ner there ain’t likely to be till ’baout mid-September.  ’Tain’t bad coffee.  I made it.”

Harvey drank in silence, and the boy handed him a plate full of pieces of crisp fried pork, which he ate ravenously.

“I’ve dried your clothes.  Guess they’ve shrunk some,” said the boy.  “They ain’t our style much —­ none of ’em.  Twist round an’ see if you’re hurt any.”

Harvey stretched himself in every direction, but could not report any injuries.

“That’s good,” the boy said heartily.  “Fix yerself an’ go on deck.  Dad wants to see you.  I’m his son,—­Dan, they call me,—­an’ I’m cook’s helper an’ everything else aboard that’s too dirty for the men.  There ain’t no boy here ‘cep’ me sence Otto went overboard —­ an’ he was only a Dutchy, an’ twenty year old at that.  How’d you come to fall off in a dead flat ca’am?”