“We ain’t more’n two miles out,” I says. “If your firm’s any good they’ll drag the bottom farther out than this. Besides,” I says, “if trouble comes the lifeboats would handle us.”
“Yes,” says Bishop; “but it’s women and children first.”
“Sure!” I says. “That’s the proper order for drownin’. The world couldn’t struggle along without us ten-thousand-dollar scenario writers.”
“They couldn’t be no trouble on such a lovely day as this,” says Bess.
“That’s where you make a big mistake,” I says. “That shows you don’t know nothin’ about the history o’ Lake Michigan.”
“What do you mean?” ast Bishop.
“All the wrecks that’s took place on this lake,” I says, “has happened in calm weather like today. It’s just three years ago this July,” I says, “when the City of Ypsilanti left Grand Haven with about as many passengers as we got today. The lake was just like a billiard table and no thought o’ danger. Well, it seems like they’s a submerged water oak about three miles from shore that you’re supposed to steer round it. But this pilot hadn’t never made the trip before, and, besides that, he’d been drinkin’ pretty heavy; so what does he do but run right plump into the tree, and the boat turned a turtle and all the passengers was lost except a tailor named Swanson.”
“But that was just an unreliable officer,” says Bessie. “He must of been crazy.”
“Crazy!” says I. “They wouldn’t nobody work on these boats unless they was crazy. It’s bound to get ’em.”
“I hope we got a reliable pilot today,” says Bishop.