b go to work. The
place he can't get into hasn't been invented. Besides," the editor
added, "Abner is just the sort of chap to take hold of an author from
Paris and turn him into a writer."

And this Abner Bell proceeded to do. He was a cheerful, rotund little
man with round simple eyes and a smile that went all over his face.

"You see," he said, when I met him the next day down at the docks, "you
can't ask a harbor to hold up her chin and look into your camera while
you count. She's such a big fat noisy slob she wouldn't even hear you.
You've got to run right at her and bark."

"Look here, old man," he was asking a watchman a few moments later.
"What's the name of the superintendent on the next pier down the line!"

"Captain Townes."

"Townes, Townes? Is that Bill Townes?"

"No, it's Ed."

"I wonder what's become of Bill. All right, brother, much obliged. See
you again." And he went on.

"Say," he asked the next watchman. "Is Eddy--I mean Captain--Townes
upstairs?"

"Sure he is. Go right up."

"Thank you." Up we went to the office. "Captain Townes? Good-morning."

"Well, sir, what can I do for you?" The captain was an Englishman with a
voice as heavy and deep as his eyes.

"Why, Captain, I'm sent here by the firm that's putting Peevey's Paris
Perfume on the market out in the Middle West. They're going in heavy on
ads this Fall and I've got an order to hang around here until I can get
a photo of one of your biggest liners. The idea is to run it as an ad,
with a caption under it something like this: '_The Kaiser Wilhelm_
reaching New York with twenty thousand bottles of Peevey's Best, direct
from Paris.'"

"_The Kaiser Wilhelm_," said the captain ponderously, "is a German boat.
She docks in Hoboken, my friend."

"Of course she does," said Abner. "And I can lug this heavy camera way
over there if you say so, and hand ten thousand dollars worth of free
ads to a German line, stick up pictures of their boat in little
drugstore windows all up and down the Middle West. Do you know how to
tell me to go away?"

Captain Townes smiled heavily.

"No," he said, "I guess I don't. Here's a pass that'll give you the run
of the dock."

"Make it two," said Abner, "and fix it so my friend and I can stick
around for quite a while."

"You're a pretty good liar," I told him as we went downstairs.

"Oh, hell," he answered modestly. "Let's go out on the porch and get
cool."

We went out on the open end of the pier