It was the shortest three miles you ever seen. We hadn’t got out past the Municipal Pier when I seen a steady influx goin’ past the engine-room and into the great beyond. I followed ’em and got what I was after. Then I went up on deck, lookin’ for my guests.
I found ’em standin’ in front o’ one o’ the lifeboats.
“Why don’t you get comfortable?” I says to Bishop. “Why don’t you get chairs and enjoy the breeze?”
“That’s what I been tellin’ ’em,” says the Missus; “but Mr. Bishop acts like he was married to this spot.”
“I’m only thinkin’ of your wife and Bessie,” says Bishop. “If anything happened, I’d want ’em to be near a lifeboat.”
“Nothin’s goin’ to happen,” I says. “They hasn’t been a wreck on this lake for over a month. And this here boat, the City o’ Benton Harbor , ain’t never sank in her life.”
“No,” says Bishop; “and the Chicora and Eastland never sank till they sunk.”
“The boats that sinks,” I says, “is the boats that’s overloaded. I was talkin’ to the government checker-player downstairs and he tells me that you put thirteen hundred on this boat and she’s perfectly safe; and they’s only eight hundred aboard now.”
“Then why do they have the lifeboats?” ast Bishop.
“So’s you can go back if you get tired o’ the trip,” I says.
“I ought to be back now,” says Bishop, “where the firm can reach me.”