In this letter Cabot also enclosed fifteen dollars, just to help White out until he could send him some more money.

This outlay left our young engineer but twenty-five dollars, but that would pay for a steerage passage, which, he reflected, would be plenty good enough for one in his reduced circumstances, and leave a few dollars for emergencies when he reached New York.
Two hours later, still clutching the bag of specimens that now formed his sole luggage, he stood on the forward deck of the steamer "Amazon" as she slipped through the narrow passage leading out from the land-locked harbour, gazing back at the city of St.Johns climbing its steep hillside and dominated by the square towers of its Roman Catholic cathedral.

He was feeling very forlorn and lonely, and was wondering how he should manage to exist on steerage fare in steerage company during the next five days, when a familiar voice, close at hand, said: "Hello, young man in furs! Where do you come from?
Been to the North Pole with Peary ?" Turning quickly, Cabot gasped out: "Captain Phinney!" "No, not cap'n, but second mate Phinney," retorted the other.

"But how do you know my name?
I don't recognise you." "I am Cabot Grant, who was with you on the 'Lavinia' when----" "Good heavens, man! It can't be." "It is, though, and I never was more glad to see any one, not even David Gidge, than I am to see you at this minute.

But why are you second mate instead of captain ?" "Because," replied the other bitterly, "it was the only berth they would give me after I lost my ship, and I had to take it or beg." "But I thought you went down with the 'Lavinia' ?" "So I thought you did, but it seems both of us were mistaken.