ing to give you a sample of it.
All winter long you've been hounding me, trying to make me take chances
crossing this bar, just so the vessel might pick up a couple of hundred
dollars extra in passenger money. It didn't matter to you what risks
other men's wives ran when you were snug in your office, did it? You
never thought of the passengers I had aboard, or the lives of my crew or
me, did you? You wanted me to cut corners and risk human lives for the
sake of your reputation as an efficient manager, you--" And he shook Mr.
Skinner until the manager's teeth rattled. "Now you're aboard yourself
with your blushing bride, and how do you like it, eh? How do you like
it? You know all about navigation, don't you? Well, you and your wife
are the only passengers this trip, and I'm going to give you a taste
of salt water you'll remember till your dying day," and with a shove he
sent Mr. Skinner flying aft until he collided with the funnel.

"You're fired!" Skinner screamed, beside himself with fear and rage. But
Matt Peasley was devoting all of his attention to the Quickstep now; and
it was well that he did. The vessel rose on the crest of a green comber
thirty feet high, and plunged with the speed of an express elevator into
the valley between that wave and the next.

A tremendous sea boiled in over the knight heads and swept aft, burying
the Quickstep until nothing showed but her upper works. But she was a
sturdy craft and came up from under it, rode the succeeding three seas
and was comparatively free of water when she shipped the next one. The
crest of it came in along the little promenade deck, carrying away the
companion that led to the bridge, staving in the doors and windows of
all the staterooms on the port side and carrying away the rails and
stanchions. There was two feet of water in Stateroom 7, where Mrs.
Skinner clung to her husband, screaming hysterically.

But despite the awful buffeting she was receiving the Quickstep never
faltered. On she plowed, riding the green billows like a gull, and
shipping a sea only occasionally. The deckload, double-lashed, held,
although the deckhouse groaned and twisted until Matt Peasley regretted
the impulse that had impelled him to do this foolish thing for the sake
of satisfying a grudge.

"She'll make it, sir," the man at the wheel called up; but Matt's face
was a little white and serious as he tried to smile back.

Another sea came ramping aboard and snatched the port lif