E was a shoeless, raggedy street-boy, watching the life of Battery Park.

A policeman came along. The boy saw the blue trousers, the lower coat buttons. He looked higher. It was not his friend, the regular old policeman. It was a new, young, fresh one; and new policemen have to be handled right.

"A nawful lot doin' 'round here, ain't they?" said the boy.

"Yes, 'nd a nawful lot o' people who don't have to be doin' it," retorted the policeman.

"Me bein' one, I s'pose," said the boy, and moved on.

It was a clear, pleasant morning in June. The East River had an inviting look. He headed that way and bumped into another boy-a clean but not too clean, a good but not too good-a human, happy-looking boy.

"Ooh, Hiker!" said the other boy. "Hulloh, Wallie!" responded the raggedy boy, and looked at the other boy with envy and liking. He often thought that if he had to be somebody else besides himself, he would like to be Wallie.

"Where bound, Hiker?"

"I dunno, but maybe to have a look in at the canallers."

"No school this morning-let me go, too, Hiker?"

"All right. But I was wonderin'-
"Wonderin' what?"

mournfully after Wallie. "Mr. Whelan, how can you let your son mix up with all those strange water-front characters? Imagine a boy being allowed to waste time with an old bum like Bill Green! Some of them"-he sniffed in Hiker's direction-"haven't even a second shirt to their backs."

Little wrinkles came to the corners of Mr. Whelan's eyes as he looked at Eels. "Maybe, Mr. Eels, if some of us were boys without a home we mightn't have even a first shirt to our backs."

Wallie came running from the store with the plug of chewing-tobacco. He passed it to Hiker, who promptly bit a corner off it, and then led Wallie to where, after stepping across the deck of an old brigantine, was a canal-boat.

Smoke was winding up out the canalboat's stovepipe. Peeking down the cabin steps, the boys could see that Bill Green was boiling coffee. Eddie and Archie were also there with their feet on the stove-rail.

lie.

"Ahoy! Aho-o-y below!" hailed Wal

Eddie looked up. "Ahoy yourselfcome down!"

"Aho-o-y, Wallie!" said Archie.

And Bill: "Hulloh, Little Bosun-come on down, Wallie! Come on down, Hiker!"

With the kettle-cover in his hand, Bill was making a face into the kettle. "A real canaller's stove, anyway-all the

By and by the coffee was done. "Sit in," said Bill, and was going to pour when Archie stood up; Eddie also stood up. The pair of them peeked with troubled faces around the cabin.

"You two," said Bill, "look's if you wouldn't be too surprised if you don't see what you'd like to see. What's it?"

"Yes, what is it, Eddie? What is it, Archie?" asked Wallie.

"Oh, nothin' much, Wallie. On'y I was thinkin'," said Eddie, "that if we had a few crackers now, they wouldn't go too bad with this coffee."

"Crackers?" piped Wallie. "I'll get some-wait!" and started up the cabinsteps.

"An' a little bolognie sossidge, Wallie!" sang out Eddie after him.

"An' a hunk o' cheese 'n' a taste o' butter, so long's you're goin'," yelled Archie.

"Aye, aye!" piped Wallie, and was gone.

Old Bill looked from Eddie to Archie, and from them to himself. "I know I'm a fakir," said Bill, "but you two-! An' he such a good kid!”

"Now Bill"-this was from Archie "don't you know he needs to be gettin' 'quainted wi' the ways o' real people? Even if he's goin' to be a thousand mile away fr'm any Yeast or North River business when he grows up

And said Eddie: "Me an' Archie, William, we met his father up on South Street th' other mornin'. 'Does that lad o' mine bother you any?' asts his father. 'Bother?' I says, an' 'Bother?' Archie here says, an' we're goin' to tell him all about Wallie when he stops us, sayin': 'Just sort o' remember his mother and father wouldn't want to see any harm happen to him, will yuh, boys?' He's all right, Wallie's father. Slipped me 'n' Archie a coupla fine cigars apiece. Y' oughter smoked one, Bill."

Bill looked around. "Where is one?" -which stopped Eddie and Archie.

Hiker had to tell them about Mr. Eels, which caused Eddie to say: "Him? H-m!" and Eddie: "H-m, yes. Knows ev'rybody's business, old Eelsie."

"An' that's all he does know," added Bill. "But quiet-here's Wallie comin' back."

It was a fine large package that Wallie brought.

"My, but you're the Little Bosun!" said Bill.

"Ain't he!" exploded Eddie. "Let's see what we got here!"

"Yes, let's see now," chirped Archie, and emptied the package onto the table. "Water-crackers! I'm glad you got

after you left how we forgot to mention water-crackers."

"Ah-h!"-Eddie was on the job, too. "My German bolognie sossidge! An' lookit, Archie-lookit! Cheese! Rocky Ford cheese-what d'y' know! An' butter! An' ras'berry jam! Who was it ordered ras'berry jam?"

"Nobody," explained Wallie. "But I thought

"It's all right, Wallie-it's all right." Eddie patted him on the shoulder. "I'll eat it myself if nobody else will. An' now here"-Eddie rushed over to pour out a cup of coffee for Wallie; but Bill got in his way.

"Wait, wait-who's cook here, anyway?" demanded Bill, and himself poured it, saying: "Here, Wallie, have yer coffee nice an' hot!"

"Thank you. M-m! it smells good, Mister Green." Wallie curled himself up on the floor and wagged his head over the fine coffee.

The process of eating induced conversation among the gang. Hiker told of the reflections of Mr. Eels in Wallie's father's store, which caused old Bill to reflect in turn.

"When a squash like Eelsie speaks o' me as a nold bum, maybe it's time f'r me to be puttin' out to sea agin," said Bill, and told them about the Helen o' Troyhow she'd put back into harbor the day before to bury their cook, who'd died off Sandy Hook, and lived in Harlem.

"I used to know him," explained Bill, "an' last night I goes up to see how he looked laid out. An' the first mate o' the Helen was there, and ast me why I didn't ship in his place, an' I said all right, how much advance? He paid me -five dollars."

"What'd yuh do wi' the five, Bill?" asked Archie.

"Well, I didn't save it to bring it aboard here. An' arter they bury him this mornin', I'm to meet him an' a few more o' the crew an' go aboard."

It came time, by and by, for Bill to be leaving for the Helen o' Troy. Wallie and Hiker walked along with him. They came to where a bunch of men were standing on a wharf. "Here's our cook now!" called out one. "Come on, Bill."

father an' take care o' yourself, Wallie!" said Bill, and followed the others aboard a waiting tug.

The tug blew a whistle; a deck-hand cast loose the lines. There was nobody specially watching, and Hiker said softly: "What's the matter with takin' a run down the bay to see the Helen?" "Why not?" inquired Wallie, and when Hiker hopped onto the tug and into a closet with a lot of brooms and scrub-brushes and pots of paint and things, there was Wallie right with him.

The tug backed out into East River and kicked on past the Battery. By and by she stopped. Hiker peeked out. Wallie peeked out. "The Helen o' Troy-see, Hiker, the name on her bow!" breathed Wallie.

She was a little iron steamer, and while Bill and the others were climbing onto her stern from the bow of the tug, Hiker was thinking that he would like to have a look at her. He climbed onto her from the stern of the tug.

"The Helen o' Troy !" Hiker could hear Wallie breathing behind him-"and she sails the bounding main! Think of that, Hiker-we're aboard a ship that sails the bounding main! Here's an open hatch! What's down there, d' y' s'pose?"

The end of a ladder was sticking up from the hatch. Down the ladder slid Wallie. Hiker slid after him. It was dark down there, and while they were reaching around to find where they were and what was in the place, somebody up on deck pulled the ladder away.

"Hold on!" called Hiker; but they were in a far corner of the hold. The next second the hatches were slapped down and they were left in darkness. Next they heard a steam-engine of some kind going chu-chu chu-chu chu-chu-chu -and a chain rattling in.

"They're takin' in the yanchor," said Hiker.

"Woops!" shouted Wallie, "the Helen o' Troy is putting to sea! The tug will tow her a little way, won't she, Hiker? An' then we'll go up on deck and go back to the city in the tug?"

"They'll be no tug for her," said Hiker. "She's under her own steam." He began to pound the bulkhead and yell. But nobody heard him.

"Woops!" said Wallie. "We're stow

aways, aren't we, Hiker-in the good ship Helen o' Troy?"

In another minute Hiker heard him crying softly. "It's father and mother," explained Wallie. "When I won't come home to-night they won't know I'm all right."

It was not only dark—it was a smelly -oh, smelly place. Wallie fell sick. "I s'pose I ought to expect to be sick, Hiker?" he asked after one of his convulsive heavings.

"If expectin' makes it easy, why o' course," assured Hiker.

Wallie fell asleep. Hiker, after a couple of chews, fell asleep. They slept and woke, slept and woke, slept and woke again. After a long time they now, half awake, heard somebody singing:

"In the deepest, darkest dungeons o' the deep, Where the devil-fish buries their dead

black sea,

A door in the farther corner opened; a man stood in the door. Another man stood behind him.

"The cook afore you, Cookie, always did like his little drop, an' I don't fancy you hate it," said the other man.

"Try me," said the man in the door. The other man passed him a flask with a screw-top, and went off. The singing man unscrewed the top of the flask and held it up against the light behind him. There were two good drinks left in it, and he smiled. It was then that Hiker saw who it was, and: "O Bill!" he called.

"O Mister Green!" cried Wallie. They were feeling weak, but they made enough noise to stop Bill. He looked around.

"Bill!" called Hiker, and "O Mister Green!" cried Wallie.

Bill hauled down the bottle and softly he said: "When yuh begin to see ghosts or hear voices o' people far away, they say it's time to quit." He turned the flask upside down and let the stuff run out.

"Bill!" yelled Hiker then, and hustled over to him, with Wallie right behind. Bill looked down. He looked and looked. "Hiker-Wallie!"

"We hid in the tug an' come aboard the Helen when nobody was lookin'," ex plained Hiker.

"Oh!" said Bill. "Oh!" He stared at the empty flask in his hand, and sighed;

and said: "What a nawful mistake to make!" And then: "But I gotter break out a keg o' pickled herrin' for the capt'n's breakfast. I'll be back."

He took half a dozen salt herring from a small barrel and went off. He came back by and by with two cups of coffee, buttered bread, and some fried herring. "I dunno how the capt'n's goin' to take the matter o' stowaways," said Bill. "But he hinted he liked tapioca, an' I'll fix 'im up a tapioca puddin' f'r dinner. Maybe it'll make him feel better; an' if it do, I'll sound 'im out. Stay here."

There was no other place to stay, so they stayed there until Bill brought dinner and the word that he was afraid the captain wasn't going to like stowaways. "I'm sure he won't," said Bill, when he came later and sneaked them up a ladder to a place where there was a bunk with a mattress and a blanket.

"Sleeping in a bunk-a regular bunk aboard a real ship out to sea-don't it beat anything ashore, Hiker!" chirped Wallie.

"It sure beats sleepin' in a dry-goods box o' seckselsior in a cellar near Brooklyn Bridge," said Hiker.

It was Bill's own bunk in a little room off the galley, a cosey place where they tucked away, helping themselves to everything Bill cooked as fast as he cooked it. When there was nobody to see them they caught glimpses of the ocean from the galley-door. It was mostly green with little patches of white, and there was a fine fresh smell off it, until late in the afternoon, when it came smooth and black, with not so dry a smell.

Dark came; Wallie and Hiker got into their bunk; and lay there while the ocean rolled by outside-rolled, and choked, and coughed.

"The voice of the sea-listen, Hiker!" said Wallie.

Hiker listened. "The voice o' somebody with bronikle trouble, I'd say," said Hiker.

By and by the Helen's whistle began to blow. There was another whistle from somewhere else. The other whistle passed out of hearing. But their whistle kept on blowing. Woogh-woogh-it went every few minutes. They knew then it was

fog.

they came out of their sleep with a bang! There was a bump, some men yelled, some more men yelled, and then-everybody shut up all at once.

"Better get inter yer clothes, Wallie," said Hiker. Except for a pair of patched pants Hiker had no clothes to get into. Hiker remembered the electric light in the galley. He switched it on, and as he did he saw the shapes of men without a word out of them go flying past the galley door.

"Look, look, Hiker!" called Wallie; but Hiker had already seen it-the water creeping in through the galley door.

Bill came swashing into them. It was up to Hiker's and Wallie's knees then. Bill looked around. He spied the whiskey-flask with the screw top upon a galley shelf.

Bill filled the flask under the galley faucet, screwed the top on right, and stuck it inside his shirt. While he was doing that Hiker remembered the two slices of bread and butter that Wallie and he were too full to eat going to bed. He put the buttered sides together and slipped them into his shirt.

"Don't let go my hand, either of yuh!" said Bill, and hanging onto Bill they went on deck. It was thick o' fog. Some forms of half-dressed men stuck out in the darkness like tombstones in a graveyard, and they heard others that they could not see calling to each other like ghosts. The water on the deck was up to the boys' waists.

Bill boosted them up onto the ship's rail. "Don't move from there, mind, till I come back to get yuh!"

He was gone; and the sea came up closer and closer.

About the time Hiker was wishing he would hurry Bill came back. The water on deck was then up to Bill's chest almost. He took Wallie on his shoulder, and, with Hiker swimming alongside, went to where a boat was made fast to a rail.

They got into the boat. Bill shoved an oar against the rail and away from the side of the Helen they went, and as they did the Helen rolled lower yet. They drifted away. Soon Bill said: "Hear her? There she's gone!"

"A watery grave!" said Wallie. "A