Part 12

"An' all this time the wicked General Balbeezo an' his bandit army is bringin' their guns down the mountainside 'n' preparin' to blow our ship outer water. An' by'n'by they're all ready to begin, when 'Car-ra-be-ee-sss-toe!' exclaims the don--'what is that sound I hear?' I forgot to say that the last thing young Hennery did afore leavin' the ship was to put in the balloon a handful o' bombs of a powerful explosive he'd invented hisself. An' the sound the don hears is the 'ruption produced when young Hennery drops the first of them bombs into the craters o' the nearest volkaner. An', while we look, the air gets dark an' the moon hides, an' fr'm outer the top of one volkaner after another comes the most monstrous explosions, an' down the mountainside comes a nocean o' fiery, flamin' lavver, with billers 'n' billers o' black smoke floatin' up off it. An' soon we hears groans o' terror an' 'Save us! Oh, save us!' from the wicked general an' his army on the beach, an' inter the harbor they plunges with their war-horses 'n' the cannon 'n' their armer still on 'em.

"An' onter the deck of our ship begins to fall just then a great shower o' yashes. An' we're in danger o' burnin' up 'n' suffercatin' an' wonderin' what to do next, when outer the black heavens comes Hennery 'n' his balloon. An' we grabs his lines that's trailin' below him when he sails over our ship an' makes 'em fast to belayin'-pins, an' he climbs down to the deck 'n' takes charge. He's on'y eighteen year old, but wonderful beyond his years. He see what to do right away, an' runs down an' peels the yasbestos off the boilers 'n' steam-pipes in her injin-room."

"What!" says Wallie. "Was she a steamer?"

"Sail 'n' steam both. Sail for the hot days to make a draft 'n' keep us cool 'n' comfortable, an' steam when there was air 'n' it was cold 'n' rainy. An' young Hennery makes fireproof coats 'n' boots an' hats outer the yasbestos linin' for the capt'n an' me an' the mate an' hisself, 'cause we're goin' to guard the deck agin the wicked general 'n' his army. All the others we puts below, so no danger'll come to them. An' when the bandits comes swimmin' alongside an' up over the rail from the backs o' their war-horses, we captures 'em an' take their weapons from 'em, an' then the capt'n says: 'Now we got 'em, what'll we do with 'em?'

"'O' course,' says Hennery, 'it would be perfeckly proper for the crool men o' the south to kill their prisoners, but as men of the north we must show a loftier example.' So spoke up our hero nobly.

"An', while we're ponderin' what to do, 'Har,' says Hennery agin, 'I have it! We will put them in the medicine-tank.'

"'But,' says our capt'n, 'they'll spile it--your father's two million two hundred 'n' odd thousand gallons o' Yunzano that we paid forty-two cents a gallon for.'

"'An',' says young Hennery Spinks to that----"

"Spiggs," says Wallie.

"Spiggs, I mean. 'Is this the time or the place,' says heroic young Hennery Spiggs then, 'to be considerin' of mere money--with the lives o' human bein's at stake? What though they be viler than dogs, they are still our fellow creatures. Cost what it may an' ruthless though the varlets be, save their lives I shall!' An' y' oughter seen him then, the fair scion of a noble sire, his pink hair flyin' in the southern wind, his pale eyes an' form in general expanded to twice their reg'lar dimensions by his righteous indignation, an' the beeyoocheous an' volupchous daughter o' the noble, wealthy don stickin' her head outer a hatchway to cast a nadorin' gaze upon him.

"An' into the tank o' Yunzano we flopped 'em, one by one as they come over the rail o' the _Tropic Zone_. I wouldn't want to state at this late date how many of 'em we saved from the burnin' lavver by throwin' 'em inter the tanks, but mebby three or four or five hundred souls all told. An', to keep the burnin' yashes off 'em, we makes a few yasbestos tarpaulins an' claps 'em down over the hatches o' the tank.

"All night long we patrolled the decks shovellin' the yashes off where they fell. An' when mornin' comes an' the 'ruptions is over we take the tarpaulins off the tank, an' there was every blessed one of 'em, fr'm the General Feeleepo Balbeezo down to the lowest private, 'spite of all we'd done for 'em, floatin' around drowned. Overcome with grief 'n' surprise we was o' course, but when we come to think it over--their endin' up that way, wi' the noble don 'n' his beeyoocheous daughter saved an' the revverlootion busted up--it sure did look like the hand o' Providence was hoverin' over us.

"And then," says old Bill, borrowin' another chew from me, "arter we'd cleared out the tank of the dead revverlootionists an' the old Yunzano, the don filled her up again free of charge. An' o' course Hennery married the don's daughter, an' for seven days an' seven nights there was no place yuh could cast yer eyes but you'd see pillers o' smoke by day an' columns o' flame by night, an' wherever you see one o' them it meant a barbecuin' of a carload o' goats 'n' oxen 'n' pigs. 'Twas nothin' but feastin' an' the givin' o' presents, an' then the bridal party embarked on the _Tropic Zone_, an' gentle tropic breezes wafted us no'therly an' westerly an' sometimes yeasterly past the shores o' Panama an' Peru an' Brazil an' Mexico an' Yucatan an' the Farrago Islands, an' the don's own band used to sit on their camp-stools under the shadder o' the great bellyin' mains'l an' plunk their guitars an' mandolins 'n' picolettes, not forgettin' the band leader who played the most amazin' solos on the hooloobooloo. An' strange ships used to sail a hundred miles out o' their course to find out who was it was sendin' them dulcet strains acrost the cam waters. An' the bridal couple 'd be holdin' hands an' gazin' over the spanker-boom at the full moon. 'Twas gorgeous an' elevatin', an' a fasset an' pipe led direct from the tank to the little kegs with brass hoops placed at frequent intervals around deck, so that whoever o' the crew wanted to could help theirselves any hour o' the day or night to a free drink o' Yunzano.

"An' thole don sits up on the poop-deck, with his hands folded acrost his stomach, an' says: 'Quiscanto vascamo mirajjar,' which is Yunzano for 'I am satisfied, I can now die happy.' But he didn't die--he lived to be ninety year old, an' before we arrives at New York he makes me a gift o' this pipe. O' course he made me other gifts, the don did, but this I value most of all, bein' made from wood of a rare tree from the heart o' the swamps o' Yunzano. An' I'll never forget him. An' so there's the story o' my youth an' Yunzano.

"'The days of our youth Are the days of our glory-- The days of old age Is the time for the story--'

So I read in a book o' poetry one time."

"But young Henry and his bride," said Wallie--"what happened them later?"

"Them?" says old Bill. "Well, it was on'y the other day I met a nold friend o' mine who used to report prize-fights an' jail matters, but is now writin' about society matters for one of our great metropolitan journals, an' he shows me in the Sunday supplement a full-page picksher, in brown ink, of a solid granite buildin' that looked like a jail but wasn't. It was the Hennery Spiggs Home for Inebriates, an' built strong like that so no one could escape from it 'n' the good that was to be done 'em. An' there was another two-page picksher, in brown ink, of Hennery Spiggs, our same young hero of other days, but now a noldish gentleman with whiskers under his ears an' his child an' grandchild gamblin' on the green lawn of his million-dollar Newport cottage. A great philanthropist he is now, an' a leader of society, with wealth beyond the dreams of a movin'-picksher actor--all made outer Yunzano. Before he dies he's hopin' to see erected a fittin' monument for that world-famous chemist, that great benefactor to the cause o' humanity an' medicine, the Honorable Nathaniel Spiggs, his father. Already his best-paid foremen an' employees was bein' invited to contribute. Sometimes I think o' goin' to see him."

"You should go, of course," says Wallie. "He will be glad to see you."

"Mebby so, mebby so, lad, but why should I thrust my wuthless carcass onter him? Besides, the round-trip fare to Newport is four dollars an' more." An' Bill gazes mournful-like across East River to Brooklyn, an' Wallie's too polite to bust in on him, but I c'n see in his eyes where he's goin' to get four dollars some way for old Bill some day to pay a visit to Newport.

An' then it comes time for Wallie to hike off to school, an' he kisses his father good-by, an' says "So long, Hiker!" to me, an' thanks old Bill for his story.

"It always gives me pleasure to instruct an' edify growin' youth," says old Bill, lookin' after Wallie goin' up South Street, an' whilst he's lookin' a policeman an' a common nordinary citizen heaves into sight. An' the man looks to be excited, with a coat over one arm.

"You take some o' these young fuhlers," says Bill, "that's been drivin' a dray all his life an' invest him with a yunniform an' authority an' a club in his hand, an' two or three times more pay than ever he got before--you do that, an' I tell you there's nobody safe from 'em." An' old Bill slips the pipe back into the coat-tail pocket of the coat an' leaves it on the steps, an' scoots lightly to behind barrels o' flour three high in the back o' the store.

Mr. Whelan has a peek over his paper at Bill passin'; but he don't say anything on'y to step to the door when the policeman an' the man come along.

"Look!" the man hollers, an' dives for the coat Bill 'd left behind him. "An' look at--the pipe!" He'd hauled it out of the coat-tail pocket. "My pipe!"

An' then the policeman says: "This gentleman this morning, Mr. Whelan, dropped into Spiegel's after a little bat for a little nip and a----"

"If you please," interrupts the man, "I will tell it. A short while ago"--he faces Mr. Whelan--"I was yunnanimously elected outer sentinel o' my lodge o' Fantail Pigeons. And last night a few friends, wishin' to commemorate the honor, presented me with this pipe--a fine pipe, as you can see--of ebony. And my initials, see--HRC--Henry R. Cotton--on the gold band. And a picture of a fantail--see--engraved on the bowl. You don't happen to be"--the man steps up to Mr. Whelan an' grabs an' squeezes his hand, all the while lookin' him hard in the eye--"a Fantail?" When Mr. Whelan don't say anything, the man gives him another grip, 'most jumpin' off his feet this time to make sure it was a good one.

"No," says Mr. Whelan, wrigglin' his fingers apart after the man let go of 'em--"I'm no Fantail."

"Oh, well, it's all right--there are some good men who are not. However, I leave the chaps this morning and step into a place down the street for a cup of coffee before I go to the office, and possibly I laid my head down on the table for a minute's nap. However, when I get up to take my coat off the hook where I'd left it, the coat is gone. And in place of it is this disreputable garment--see?" an' he throws down the old coat an' wipes his feet on it.

"Spiegel's bartender, Herman," puts in the policeman, "says there was a nold bum came in an' hung his coat next to this gentleman's, an' when he went the coat went; and he must 'a' went pretty quiet, Herman says, for he didn't notice him goin'. An' his description fits an old loafer who hits the free-lunch trail pretty reg'lar 'round here, an' I think I seen him loafin' around here once or twice."

"He meant to steal that coat an' pipe," says the man.

"If he meant to steal it," says Mr. Whelan, "why d' y' s'pose he left it here?"

"Why, I dunno," says the man.

"O' course he didn't," says Mr. Whelan. "An', look here"--he sticks the mornin' paper under the man's nose an' says: "What do you think o' Marquard holdin' the Phillies down to two hits yesterday?"

"No!" says the man; "two hits? Well, say, he's _some_ boy, hah?"

"Is he? Listen to me," says the policeman, shovin' his club between them. "Listen. All I gotter say is, with Mattie an' Jeff an' the Rube goin' right, where'll them Red Sox fit with the Giants in the world's series next month? God help 'em--that's all I gotter say."

"The Giants look like a good bet to me, too," says the man, an' soon up the street toward Spiegel's the pair of 'em go, fannin' about the Giants with Mr. Whelan.

An' when Mr. Whelan is soon back alone, Bill comes out from behind his flour-barrels an' with his plug o' Comanche Chief in his hand. "I don't s'pose yuh could swap this for chewin' o' the same brand, could yuh, Mr. Whelan?" he says.

"Why--you given up smokin'?" says Mr. Whelan.

"How'm I goin' to smoke without a pipe?" says Bill.

"That's so," says Mr. Whelan, an' goes behind the counter an' pulls down a couple o' boxes of brier pipes.

"With a middlin' good hook to the stem, if you don't mind," says Bill.

Mr. Whelan passes over the best make of French brier. Bill held it up. "She looks all right." He put it between his teeth. "An' she feels all right." He sticks it into his shirt. "An' I guess she'll smoke all right." He steps to the door an' picks up the old coat. "What good it done him to wipe his feet on my coat, I dunno," he says. Then he turns back.

"About Wallie, Mr. Whelan?"

"Why, Bill," says Mr. Whelan, "when he gets back from school of course he'll get down the chart to look up all those countries you passed on the way back from Yunzano, and o' course we'll have to make a correction or two in your jography."

"O' course," says Bill. "I useder have a good mem'ry once, but"--he taps his head--"gettin' old, gettin' old, Mr. Whelan. That coat now--it sure did look like the cut o' the coat I used to wear on the _Tropic Zone_. And the pipe!" an' old Bill gazes mournful-like across East River to Brooklyn, an' turns again an' says: "A good boy, your boy, Mr. Whelan--no evil suspicions o' people in his heart. An', as my old capt'n o' the _Tropic Zone_ useder quote fr'm the Bible to me: 'It's they shall inherit all there is that's wuth inheritin'.'"

An' then Bill heaved another sigh, and put on his old coat, an' went shufflin' up South Street, on the side away from Spiegel's.

One Wireless Night

Cahalan, of the many voyages, had been reading of the latest marine near-disaster and the part played therein by the ship's wireless man; but refused to be impressed.

"The slush the papers print sometimes!" he snorted. "Here's this now about this SOS fellow--all these papers trying to make out what a wonder he was, as if it took a wizard to keep pumping out three letters till somebody heard you. And a hero, too!"

"Why not--he stood by his key, didn't he?"

"Sure he did. And if you and me were wash-women we'd probably stand by our wash-tubs, wouldn't we? If there was no more danger keeping on washing than standing around doing nothing, we surely would, wouldn't we? But nobody'd think of calling us heroes for it, would they? That SOS man now--if he didn't want to stand by his key he could 've jumped overboard--it was only a thousand miles to shore. So he stood by his key and eased his mind by having something to do, which, of course, makes him a hero."

"It's a great thing just the same, the wireless."

"Sure it is and needs no fake booming, but I like to see a little brains mixed with it. There was a fellow named Furlong--I ran across him first in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where our battle-fleet was rondayvouing for winter drill. I had a month's pay on a fight coming off in London and was wishing I knew how it came out without waiting a week or ten days for the New York papers, when Faulkner, the captain's yeoman, says: 'Why don't you ask Furlong, the wireless operator? He'll find out for you.'

"But how can he?" says I.

"You people in the deck division," says Faulkner, "you're living in the past. You fellows want to come out of your sailin'-ship dreams and steam around and see what's doin' in the world. Furlong'll pick it off from the Cape Cod station when they're gettin' it from across for the newspapers."

"From here--from off the ship?" I asks. "Why, I thought the record for picking up or sending from a ship was six or seven hundred miles."

"Maybe it is," says Faulkner, "but Furlong's specialty is breaking records."

So I step up to the wireless shack to see Furlong. Regan, the chief signal quartermaster, was there before me. Regan had a girl in Brooklyn, and Furlong was getting off Regan's regular evening message to her about how he was still in good health and still hoped to be back in the spring and so on by wireless to a station up near New York in charge of a friend of Furlong's, whose job was to pass it on to a telegraph-office in Brooklyn just across the street from where the girl lived. She would have it for breakfast in the morning, and Regan would have her answer to it some time during the day. A consolation to two loving hearts it was, and they doing it all winter without it costing either of them a copper.

I tell Furlong what I'm after. "Sure," he says, and begins to make the colored lights hop. "And have a cigarette while you're waiting," he says, "for it will take a few minutes."

I looked around for a match. "Here," says Furlong, and spills a little alcohol from a bottle onto a copper-looking switch thing and brings down on that another copper-looking switch thing with a handle--both of 'em sticking out from the bulkhead--and out flows a blue flame six inches long and I light my cigarette, watching out not to burn the end of my nose while I'm lighting it. He had the place full of little gadgets like that.

While we sat there he gives out all the latest news as fast as he grabs it off, not only about my fight in London, but how the ponies were running in New Orleans, what Congress was killing time about, which particular European country was going to war now--all the important news.

I'm not setting up Furlong for any hero, mind you, but sitting up there in his little shack on the superstructure, grabbing news like that from everywhere flying--he made a hit with me. After that if I didn't want to know any more than was there good skating in Central Park I'd ask Furlong, and he'd dig up some station or other around New York, make the blue lights hop, clap the wireless gear to his head, and soon be telling me all about it.

That spring I was transferred, and didn't see Furlong again for two years. Then it was in the East--in Hong Kong during the Russo-Japanese war, both of us paid off and both of us wondering what we'd do, but Furlong not worrying much about the money end of it. He had plenty of that, enough anyway to keep him in good clothes and stop at all the good hotels he cared to for a while. And enough to stake me after I'd gone broke, too.

In Hong Kong we struck in with another young fellow who was flourishing around as an American tourist, though Furlong knew him for a wireless man before he'd been with him an hour, and in less than another hour knew him for the wireless operator one time on the _Nippon_, a steamer running from our country to Japan. But he never let on he knew him.

"Suppose he is playing a little game of bluff, where is it my business to show him up?"

Furlong had come to know the daughter of a purser running on a steamer, the _Plantagenet_, between Hong Kong and the Japanese ports, and she was pretty as you please and he taking a great shine to her; after telling the old man, mind you, that he had been an enlisted man in the United States navy and was thinking of going back home to Chicago, but not telling him that his folks back home had bales of money, which would have put him in right, for the old man did like the chink of hard coin and was picking up his share on his own little graft--renting his room to rich passengers when the ship was crowded, picking up a little more change by doing a little smuggling, and probably in the pay of the Jap Secret Service on the side.

One evening Furlong, always a sociable chap, brings his wireless friend around, and another evening, and another. Pretty soon things don't seem to be running as smooth as they used to for Furlong, but fine for his wireless friend. "Well, that's all right, too," says Furlong, "if they like him better than me."

"But no need to give you a frost, is there?" I said.

Things kept growing cooler around the girl's house, so we made up our minds 'twas about time to get away somewhere, and war being a great place to forget your troubles, we had a look in at that. We took the Russian side. We were for the Japs in the beginning, but by this time nearly all our navy people in the East had swung over to the Russians. Why? M-m--probably because deep down inside of us we believed the Russians were nearer our own kind.

Before we left Hong Kong I found out how Furlong's wireless friend had done for him. With a few drinks in him--me buying the drinks--he gushes some confidential chatter.

Furlong was in the pay of the Russian Government, was what he told the foxy old purser. How else could a man so clever--talking and having so much money to spend as Furlong was spending--how could he have been an enlisted man in any navy? And he showed a cable--being so easy to fix up, I wondered why he hadn't made it a wireless--that no man of Furlong's father's name was living in Chicago. I didn't tell that to Furlong--not then. Why? Because to my notion he was well clear of a cheap bunch.

Later we heard she was married to the wireless chap and the pair of them living off her father. His people had lost all their money in speculation, so the young fellow told the old man; which left nothing for the old man to do but get him a job somewhere; which he did, on the _Plantagenet_, where the wife was aboard, too--to save expenses.

"Kind of tough on her," says Furlong, and maybe it was, though I couldn't see it. She only got what was coming to her. The woman that would look at Furlong and not see that he rated a whole division like the other chap-- But trying to account for young women's judgment of young men and vice versa, as the old Romans would say, what's the use? And if we all knew as much as we ought to there would half the time be no story, would there?

We were both in Port Arthur when things were looking blue for the Russians. The Japs were hammering away at the forts and the place filling up with dead and wounded, and all kinds of sickness and fever flourishing, and medical and food supplies getting pretty low. They were wondering how they were going to make out, when some topsider said that if some of the sick and wounded could be got up to Vladivostok it might save a good many lives and be a great relief to the rest of the garrison.

There happened to be three transports in the harbor at this time. They had slipped by the blockade, which wasn't ever any too well kept, the mines outside being about as dangerous to the Japs as to anybody else. These three ships would accommodate three thousand sick people. So they were put aboard, sick and wounded, officers and men--and women, too, some officers' wives among them.

For a convoy to the transports the best they could detail was a battleship that had been in an engagement not long before. Pretty well shot up she was and much doubt would she stand the trip to Vladivostok; but she was the only one available and out we went, with Furlong as her wireless operator. There being not too many good wireless men lying around just then, they counted a lot on him.