zee the English sporting speerit! Voila! What a race--a dory and a dry
dock!"

"Throw us a line!" shrieked Madden, "you blithering--think this is fun?"

"Ah, pardon, a thousand pardons! I hasten!"

He disappeared and a few seconds later a coil of rope came hurtling
down. Madden caught it and his toil was over. A moment later another
sailor, of distinct Irish physiognomy, dropped down a rope ladder to the
boat. They paid the sweating boatman a double fare, climbed up and
hoisted their bags with the line.

Only when on board did the lads appreciate the enormous size of the
dock. It would have been impossible to throw a baseball from one end to
the other. The black sides rose above them like an iron canyon. Ranging
down these precipices were innumerable huge iron stanchions for the
shoring of ocean liners. Toward the forward end of the dock was a two
hundred ton pile of coal, for the use of the tug, but it was dwarfed to
the size of a kitchen supply by the black expanse around it. On the
other side there were erected a few temporary wooden houses to serve as
kitchen, dining room, and quarters for the crew on the voyage. There
were a group of men loitering about these cabins.

The newcomers still stared at their gigantic surroundings when the
interested Frenchman said politely:

"It ees large, beeg, yes?"

"Where's the boss?" inquired Leonard. "We've got jobs aboard this