business demeanor.

"Exactly! And the only talk I want you to turn loose is to the effect
that you believe I'm doing my best to make this line worth something to
the stockholders. Where are you stopping?"

Mayo named a little hotel around the corner.

"I'll put you aboard the _Montana_ just as soon as I can arrange the
details of transfer. I may let Jacobs make another trip or so. Report
here each morning at nine. For the rest of the time keep within reach of
the hotel telephone."

Mayo saluted and went out.

Fogg called the observer at the weather bureau on the telephone and
asked some questions. He was informed that the wind had swung into the
northwest and that the long-prevailing fog had been blown off the coast.

Mr. Fogg appeared to feel somewhat peevish over this sudden departure
of the weather phenomenon which bore his family name. He slammed the
receiver on to the hook and said a naughty word. A person overhearing
might have wondered a bit, for here was a steamboat manager cursing the
absence of the fog instead of preserving his profanity to expend on the
presence of the demoralizing mists. But the reign of the north wind in
late summer is never long; three days later the breeze shifted, and the
gray banks of the fog marched in from the open sea.

Mayo was awakened early by the clamor of the whistles of river craft,
for the little hotel was near the water-front. He saw the fog drifting
in shredded masses against the high buildings, shrouding the towers.
He had been waiting his call to duty with much impatience, finding the
confinement of the hotel irksome in the crisp days of sunlight, eager to
be out and about this splendid new duty which promised so much.

It was the _Montana's_ sailing-day from the New York end.

He had gone to sleep thrilling with the earnest hope that he would be
called to take her out. But when he looked out into that morning, saw
the draping curtains of the stalking mists, heard the frantic squallings
of craft in the harbor, frenzied howls of alarm, hoarse hootings of
protests and warnings, he was suddenly and pointedy anxious to have
his elevation to the pilot-house of the _Montana_ deferred. Better the
smoky, cramped office of the little hotel where he had been chafing in
dismal waiting. He was perfectly willing to sit there and study
over again the advertising chromos on the walls and gaze out on the
everlasting procession of rumbling drays. But at eight o'clock the
teleph