38 WALL STREET AND THE WILDS 



didn't mean to be rough." Whereupon I en- 

 shrined that pilot in my boyish pantheon. 



There was a boy employed in a broker's office 

 with whom I became intimate, and I hung upon 

 his lips for the drops of Wall Street wisdom that 

 fell so freely from them. I was impressed at the 

 time by his assumption that he ran the house that 

 employed him, but discovered later that among 

 the boys of that street there was nothing distinc- 

 tive in such a claim. He owned a rowboat, and 

 dawn often found us rowing across Communipaw 

 Bay, where now runs the Central Railroad, 

 bound for Cavan Point and a morning's fishing. 

 Sometimes we went as far as Robbin's Reef for 

 our porgies and weak fish, and on such occasions 

 started an hour before it was light. 



I was hard to waken, but mv friend took the 

 contract, which I facilitated by sleeping with a 

 string tied to my toe, one end of which, the string, 

 not the toe, hung down outside the window. On 

 one occasion the closed sash caused the string to 

 fail to work, and the youth tried to climb to my 

 room by the aid of a vine. He fell into the hands 



