Seeing black smoke surge through the steamboat's tall forward stack, and hearing the shrill sound of its steam whistle, he began running madly across the wooden planks of the pier, forcing his way through a wave of passengers who had disembarked from the steamboat Richmond. Apprehension mounted and quickly turned to frustration.

Too late. He had missed his boat.

The boarding ramp had been laid on the pier by dockworkers, and the ropes that had moored the boat to the pier were being pulled aboard by her crew. Only a few feet separated the hull from the dock. The man was tempted to jump the gap. But one glance at the ominous, frigid water and he quickly changed his mind.

The captain was standing in the open door of the wheelhouse, staring at the late arrival. He smiled and shrugged. Once a boat cast off and left the dock, no captain ever turned back for tardy passengers.

He threw the disappointed ticket holder a brief wave, stepped into the wheelhouse, and closed the door, happy to return to the warmth of the pot-bellied stove beside the big steering helm.

The man on the pier stood there panting, his normally white face turned crimson. He stomped on the planking of the pier to shake the crust of ice from his feet as he watched Long Island Sound's fastest steamer slip into the East River, her side-paddle wheels churning the gray-green water. He failed to notice a dockworker, who moved beside him, puffing on a pipe.

The stranger nodded at the departing boat. "She leave without you?"

he asked.

"If I had arrived ten seconds earlier, I could have jumped aboard," the stranded passenger answered slowly.

"There's ice forming on the Sound," said the dockworker. "A miserable night to be making' a passage."

"The Lexington is sturdy and fast. I've booked passage on her a dozen times. I'll wager she'll dock in Stonington by midnight."

"Maybe so, maybe not. If I was you, I'd be thankful to stay warm on land till the next boat leaves in the mornin'."

The man gripped the carpetbag under one arm and shoved his gloved hands deep in the pockets of his long coat. "Curse the luck," he said gruffly. "Another night in the city is the last thing I wanted."

He took one last look at the steamer making its way upriver through the cold, forbidding water, then turned and walked back to the terminal, unaware that those few feet between the dock and the hull of the departing boat had spared him an ugly and violent death.

"I'd have sworn that crazy fool was going to jump for it," said Captain George Child.

The pilot of the Lexington, Captain Stephen Manchester, turned without taking his hands from the helm. "A mystery to me why passengers wait until the last minute to board."

Child stepped to the front of the wheelhouse and peered at a thermometer that was mounted on the exterior window frame. "Barely four degrees above zero. She'll hit a good five degrees below before this night is over."