er
bargeman, as, tooting loudly on a fog-horn, one of the "Medway flyers,"
shaved past them.

"Near thing, that," observed the mate, calmly.

Cap'n Pigg went a shade paler beneath the tan on his weather-beaten
face.

"Cuss 'im! careless 'ound!" he muttered. "Might a' sunk us."

"'Ad no proper lookout, I expect," returned Mr. Topper, "even if 'e 'ad,
'e couldn't see anything, and we got no fog-'orn to show 'em where we
was, yer see."

"No. An' p'raps we shall go to the bottom, all along o' our 'aving lost
our ole bit o' tin. It's a orful thing to think of, ain't it?" said
Cap'n Pigg solemnly.

The mate appeared to be in a brown study. Then, as though he had
suddenly been inspired, he exclaimed:

"What about the grammarphone, Skipper?"

Even in the midst of his perturbation, Cap'n Pigg looked askance at
mention of the hated instrument. But it was a case of 'any port in a
storm,' and, with a grim nod, he relieved the mate at the wheel, and
said:

"Fetch the bloomin' consarn up."

Mr. Topper obeyed, with alacrity in his step, and a wink in his eye. The
'consarn' was quickly brought on deck, and the 'Washington Post' let
loose on the astonished ears of fog-smothered mariners, right and left
of them.

One old shell-back, coming up river on a Gravesend shrimper, listened in
blank astonishment for a minute, and then confided huskily to his mate
that he thought their time had come.

"'Eavenly, strains! It's wot they calls 'the music o' the spears,'" he
said mysteriously, "Hangels' music wot comes just before a bloke's
time's up. We better prepare for the wust."

His mate, less superstitious and with more common sense, rejoined:

"Garn! 'Music o' the spears' be blowed! It's more like a pianer-horgan
or a 'urdy-gurdy."

The shrimper glided on, and a tramp steamer, going dead slow, just
shaved past the musical barge. Its master roared derisively from the
bridge:

"'Ullo, barge, ahoy! Wot yer got there? Punch and Judy show aboard?"

Which cost Cap'n Pigg a nasty twinge. He had always prided himself on
his seaman-like ways, and to proceed thus, down the great river, like a
mountebank, or a Cockney out on a Bank Holiday, hurt his feelings more
than he could say.

Yet another insult was to be hurled at the _Saucy Sally_, for
"Jacksonville," with its weird human chorus, having been turned on--when
the "Ha! Ha! Ha!" rang out on the ears of a passing tug's captain, that
outraged gentleman, thinking he was being p