A burst of noble music, a
fine sentiment in a poem, a poor woman crying, keen personal
disappointment, or any acute mental trouble, had this strange effect on
the optics of Marcus Wilkeson.
The bell rang; voices shouted, "All aboard!" the gangplank was drawn in;
several belated people jumped on, at the risk of their lives, after the
boat had left the wharf, one man vaulting over ten feet; and the voyage
for Jersey was commenced.
Three minutes later, the inmates of the cabins began to go forward and
pick favorable positions for jumping off on the other side. The scramble
to evacuate the seats then was as sharp as the scramble to possess them,
three minutes before. A few more rounds of the wheels, and the boat
thumped in the usual way against one row of piles at the entrance of the
Jersey slip, and then caromed like a billiard ball on the other, each
time nearly knocking the passengers off their feet, and shaking a small
chorus of screams out of the ladies.
When the boat was within a yard of the wharf, the jumping commenced; and
all the able-bodied men, most of the boys, and some of the ladies, were
off before the boat butted with tremendous force against the wharf,
shaking both wharf and boat to their foundations, and giving to the
people on both a parting jar, which they carried in their bones for the
rest of the day.
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