The Rules of the Road

Now the Dreadnought's a-sailing the Atlantic so wide,
Where the high, roaring seas roll along her black side.
Her sailors like lions walk the deck to and fro,
She's the Liverpool packet--O Lord let her go!
--Song of the Flash Packet.

On a day in early August the Nequasset came walloping laboriously
up-coast through a dungeon fog, steel rails her dragging burden, caution
her watchword.

The needle of her indicator marked "Half speed," and it really meant
half speed. Captain Zoradus Wass made scripture of the rules laid
down by the Department of Commerce and Labor. There was no tricky
slipping-over under his sway--no finger-at-nose connivance between the
pilot-house and the chief engineer's grille platform. No, Captain Wass
was not that kind of a man, though the fog had held in front of him two
days, vapor thick as feathers in a tick, and he had averaged not much
over six nautical miles an hour, and was bitterly aware that the rate of
freight on steel rails was sixty-five cents a ton.

"And as I've been telling you, at sixty-five cents there's about as much
profit as there would be in swapping hard dollars from one hand to the
other and depending on what silver you can rub off," said Captain Wass
to First-mate Mayo.

The captain was holding the knob of the whistle-pull In constant clutch.
Regularly every minute Nequasset's prolonged blast sounded, strictly
according to the rules of the road.