“That was pretty good! There’s luck in everything—”
“It’s an awful thing to say; and I’m not insultin’ anyone that’s present here; but what I’m tellin’ you is facts and figures … There was three Italians come to New York; and they didn’t speak no English. They went to stay at a boardin’-house — I think it was kept by a Mrs. McCarty. The first night they was there, they woke up hearin’ a great noise in the room beneath, and they was scared … So one of them went to a little knothole there was in the floor, and listened. Now there was three Irishmen playin’ cards in the room beneath, but the Italian couldn’t see nothin’, and all he heard was a voice sayin’—”
“Major Kendall! Major Kendall! Is Major Kendall here?”
“Outside! Outside!”
“Two Scotch? Yes, sir.”
“And a splash.”
“Well, they was so scared they took their bundles and run out of the house; and after a while they come to the Harlem bridge; and when they was halfway across the bridge they come to a dead man lyin’ on his back in the middle of the sidewalk with his throat cut and a knife in his hand—”
“I’ll bet you’ve got an ace. Want to bet?”
“—kiddin’—”
“—and while they was standin’ there lookin’ at the corpse a policeman came up to them—say! listen to this! Are you listenin’?”
“Sure we’re listening.”
“—and says to them, ‘Who done this?’ ‘I drew!’ says the first one, ‘I cut!’ says the second one, ‘I had a hand,’ says the third: so he pinched all the three of them.”
“Ha ha! Some story! Good boy, Paddy!”
“—at the Orpheum, in Boston, two weeks ago, dressed as a woman, with a great big brass padlock hanging down behind, and biting a little Japanese fan — saying he’d been followed right to the stage door by two sailors and a fireman—”
“Have you a little fairy in your home? Well, we had, but he joined the navy!”
“—and this guy went into a saloon in Chicago, leading a tiger on a leash! A big rattlesnake put his head out of his breast pocket, and he slapped it in again. When the tiger wouldn’t lie down, he kicked it on the snout. ‘Say!’ says the bartender. ‘The town you come from must be pretty tough!’ … ‘Tough! You said a mouthful, bo. That town’s so tough it kicked us fairies out.’”
“Ha ha ha … You know that one about the lonely fairy in Burlington, Vermont, and the alarm clock?… smothered it with kisses! I like that story.”
(“My throte is cut unto the nekke bone,”
Seyde this child; “and, as by way of kinde,
I sholde have deyed, ye, longe tyme agoon …” …
Of course it was deliberate. That cold blue light in her eye. She bore down on me like a frigate. Frigga, the goddess of fertility. Perhaps she and Cynthia had disagreed about it — and this was her way of forcing a crisis? She guesses that now I won’t be inclined to approach Cynthia? Damned clever! Damned clever. I take off my hat to her. It was done so beautifully, too — like an aseptic operation — no feelings, no display, no waste of effort; a miracle of economy. The first time, I thought — actually! — that it might have been a mistake! I had made ready to bow to her — and I was so pleased, too, to be discovered walking there, in broad daylight, like one who “belongs,” on the first cabin deck with Purington — so anxious, also, that I might be seen by Cynthia! I was positively wagging my tail, as I drew nearer — discreetly, of course, and to myself; the bow I had prepared was to be a very refined and quiet one. Alas! it will never be seen, that clearly preconceived bow on the deck of the Nordic, on the port side, at eleven o’clock in the morning, at latitude such-and-such and longitude so-and-so, with the sun x degrees above the horizon in a fleece of cirro-cumulus, and one sea gull perched on the foremast like a gilded finial! And now the question is — will Cynthia be told of that encounter? That depends on whether she is already a party to the plan. About even chances … No — more than that … After all, there was the copy of Galatea I sent her, and the two silly letters, which she never acknowledged or answered. She must, therefore, have been annoyed. In the circumstances, after so brief and casual and superficial and unguaranteed an acquaintance, I had no right to send them. Of course, I knew that. Just the same, if she had been as mature, as broad-minded, as fine as I thought—)
“No, you see, I miss boat in New York — got to take dis one, sure. I lose one week. Torino. I go Torino. How I go? Liverpool to Lond’ is four hour,’ tha’s fi’ dollar? Lond’ to Dover is t’ree hour?… Naw, I don’ care, I got plenty time, sure … Torino, I go Torino firs’. My fader liver in Ancona, ol’ man, live alone. My moder, she die six, seven year ago. Look — she give me—”
“—pretty risky, yes. I saw a man killed on a derrick once. He was climbing up near the top, when he slipped. His shoes were worn down, and the broken sole of one of them — anyway, that’s what we thought — caught on a girder … Another time I saw an oil derrick start to fall — eighty feet high — with two men on it, right at the top. They felt it beginning to go — and by gosh they jumped—first one and then the other, — eighty feet down to the slush vat — only a little thing ten feet square, you know — and both of them hit it, neither of them hurt! Gosh! The rest of us felt pretty sick. About five minutes after it, I began to shake so bad I had to sit down on a barrel. A thing like that makes you think …”
Lights of Library and Port Deck. Lights of Bar and Starboard Deck. Single Stroke. Trembling.
Sound Signals for Fog and So Forth.
In fog, mist, falling snow, or heavy rainstorms, whether by day or night, signals shall be given as follows:
A steam vessel under way, except when towing other vessels or being towed, shall sound at intervals of not more than one minute, on the whistle or siren, a prolonged blast.
“Well, Mr. Demarest, why so sad?”
“Sad, do I look sad?”
“You look as if you’d lost your last friend!”
“So I have — I’ve been crossed in love.”
“No. You don’t say so. You’re old enough to know better. Were you on your way to the Library? Do you mind if I join you till dinnertime?”
“I should be delighted. I’ve been trying to read psychology in the smoking room. But the combination of disappointment in love with the noise there — was too much for me.”
“Noise! My dear Mr. Demarest, you ought to be grateful. Up where I come from, if anyone is so careless as to drop a teaspoon, everybody else is upset for the rest of the day. I feel like screaming … What’s the psychology?”
“Well, I’m a little hazy about it. Did you ever hear of the Bororos?”