Part 3

William T. could never leave there with that dollar in his pocket. He made a great fellow of himself by buying drinks for a bunch of bums, and then I warped him in and grappled him to me. Passing the Bayport Hotel this time, I could see Judkins and Davies still talking, only by this time some of the crew were giving out interviews, too, and the audience included two or three reporters, and all hands had moved from the lobby to the barroom.

After a peek at that cheerful party and then at the dark harbor I didn't blame William T. for wanting to go in and join them, but he had signed to go a cruise on the _Happy Day_. I reasoned with him till he told me for the third time that he was William T. Coots, a tough guy, and was going to have one more drink. Then I dropped fair words, walloped him back on to the sidewalk, ran him down aboard the _Happy Day_, and introduced him to Scoot.

We put out. The _Happy Day_ was an ancient craft that had been built right there in Bayport, and if she'd ever been outside the harbor before, the oldest inhabitant couldn't recall it. How she was going to act outside this night none of us would bet, but we hoped she'd surprise us.

But she acted pretty much like we figured she would. She had a 65-foot hammer hoist. We couldn't see ten feet away--it was a dark, drizzly night--but we could feel the runways of that hoist waving somewhere up in the clouds above us. And no harm in that, if it didn't come down on our heads; and no harm when she wouldn't lift from a sea--she wasn't built to--but if only she'd let one pass! But not a blessed one. She'd slue around sideways, and the next one would hit her a swipe, and aboard they'd come as if all the welcome in the world was waiting them.

The _Happy Day_ rated a deck-house amidships, with a galley and a little L that Scoot had built on, with a bunk to sleep in of nights. A sea coming aboard one side took the house along with it over the other side. "O' course," said Wheezer, "it was nachally to be espected, but if she'd waited till next week I was reckonin' to had her painted red with blue trimmin's, an' sell her along o' the rest o' the lighter."

When the house threatened to loosen up first, Scoot came up out of the hold to rescue Confucius from his bunk, with a brier pipe he'd bought years before this for a half-crown in Liverpool and a pair of custom-made pants he used to wear to parties.

A couple of tons of water in the shape of a small sea chased Scoot back down the ladder. A spry one, Scoot. He got out of the way, holding Confucius and the pants high in the air. The back of William T's neck happened to be about the middle of the region where most of that sea landed below. After he'd coughed up what he could from his insides, William T. had a word to say. Scoot had rigged up a bilge-pump which worked from the hold. William T. was told to work that as well as shovel the coal. What he wanted to say was that he'd shovel the coal or he'd stand by the pump, but not both. "What did I ship for--what for?" he demanded of Scoot.

Scoot was a little man, and he used to rig up a pair of big black horn-rimmed spectacles he owned and talk with care before strangers, but he wasn't so safe as he looked. His father, a delicatessen man, had intended him for a chemist, and then died in time to save him from it. Scoot had other notions, and only he met a Barbados negro with a head made of the same mixture as two parts in five Portland cement after it'd had two days to set--only for him Scoot said he might have been a light-weight champion riding around in his own auto. After that fight he said he'd never raise his hand to a man again. No, sir; it would be a meat-axe for him--also he was going to draw the color line. And the higher life for him thereafter.

"Only in toilsome essays to climb the heights Does man from his baser nature rise,"

Scoot used to say. And he did essay to climb, but every once in so often his foot would slip and down he'd come and begin to claw around like anybody else.

"That big brute that toted me aboard here, and that other big brute up on deck, mebbe they c'n lick me," said William T. now; "but no red chin-whiskered, toothless runt like you kin."

Scoot wasn't shy any teeth. It was the way his under jaw was hung. When he'd take to chewing with his front teeth, that lower jaw used to come up outside the upper one. But it was true about his chin-whisker, and he didn't like it.

"That so?" says Scoot, and stows his big horn spectacles in their case and selects a nice long spanner; and when William T. came at him wide open he tapped him--once, twice--neatly.

When William came to, Scoot was waving a full-sized twenty-pound shovel before his eyes. Says Scoot: "Observe, please, this instrument. You insert the forward end of it under this pile of coal--so; and you elevate it--so: a hand here and a hand there; and you project it into the firebox--so. And so on and so on, repeating ad noshum. You savvy?" says Scoot. "Cause if you don't, then you hear me, son; I'll whale the everlastin' livers 'n' lights outer your debased hide."

"You-all are sure a bunch o' tough guys," says William T.; and thereafter Scoot went around applying Leakitis to the worst spots in peace.

We were having our own recreation up on deck. I was to the wheel, of course, and as long as I hung on there I was all right. But Wheezer had to stay forward to keep a lookout. We didn't have any lights, and we didn't want any wandering craft to be running over us in the dark and drizzle. Wheezer wanted to climb up the hammer hoist to get out of the way of the seas, but wasn't too sure he wouldn't come down and go any minute over the side with it. He wound up by lashing himself to a weather-deck bitt and letting most of the water in the Gulf of Mexico flow over him. Being, as he said, a diver by trade, 'twas no strange thing for him to be under water, but being under this way, he said he missed the air-tube. In the middle of it he remembered he forgot to say good-by to his partner at the dance-hall. "If anything happens us, I hope she won't think I came out here to get lost a-purpose to get away from her," said Wheezer.

From time to time Scoot stuck out his head to make sure we weren't yet washed overboard, and to report on the leaks; and also on William T. Scoot wouldn't call William any Olympic champion with a shovel, but--doubtless we had noticed it--he was producing steam.

Which was so. Four miles an hour was all we ever figured on driving the _Happy Day_ across smooth harbor routes, and here she was banging out that many in a seaway on the open gulf, making fair allowance, of course, for the side slips. She was all right, the old _Happy_, and she brought us at daybreak to Horseshoe Shoal and the _Yucatan_, she still with her bow fast but her stern loose to the seas. Without wasting any time, I laid the _Happy Day_ alongside, and Wheezer was about to go aboard her when he was met at the gangway by a cat.

Wheezer always did have a terrible respect for the laws of the sea. "Ain't there some law about ship's cats?" he asks now; and Scoot digs out his case and adjusts his glasses, and after a little meditation says: "There are, Wheezer, many superstitions and traditions connected with the sea. A marvellous vehicle of misinformation and credulous belief, the sea. Reflect on the vogue which sea-serpents have enjoyed. Reflect on how the ferocity of sharks has been exaggerated. It is doubtless the fact, Wheezer, that jaded imaginations thankfully accepted these ancient fallacies to render more startling the dénouement of their dramas. To such, doubtless, do we owe the invention of the cat on abandoned ships to frustrate the hopes of those who would claim honest salvage." Scoot took another breath. "It is usually a black cat, but even so for a cat to rank before the law as the equal of a human creature is absurd. This, I perceive" (Scoot let the back of his head settle on to his shoulder so's to have a good look) "is not a black but a gray cat, Wheezer--a lean, gray feline. In the days of the ancient Persians, Wheezer, a gray cat was a symbol of----"

"Scat, you slab-sided gray symbol!" barked Wheezer just then, and the cat scatted with a long leap from the rail of the oil-ship on to Scoot's shoulder, and from there into the hold of the _Happy Day_.

"Whatever the Persians thought o' cats, this cat's off her now, Scoot," said Wheezer--"she's sure abandoned now," and went aboard.

"It looked hungry passing me," said Scoot, and called down to Billie T. to feed it a little lubricating oil on a shovel. "It's nourishing and fattening," says Scoot, "and we'll keep it aboard. Every seagoing ship should have one for luck."

Wheezer reported not another soul aboard the oil-ship; and, under the laws of the sea, that made her ours to do what we pleased with. And we had our own notions of how to work her off the bar. We broke out ten or a dozen barrels of oil and poured them over the troubled waters. Then I belted and bolted Wheezer into his diving-suit, and broke out our steam-drill--left over from the _Weeping Annie_--and Wheezer dropped over and began to bore holes under the bow of the oil-ship.

Scoot had never been shipmates with an oil-burner before, and he went below to get acquainted with this one. I was busy wiring charges of dynamite for what we had to do next, so to William T. was left the job of pumping air to Wheezer. Twice Wheezer came up, his cheeks bulging out when I unscrewed his helmet, to ask me to explain to William T. that pumping the air ahead of time and then resting up to wait till that was used up wasn't the way of it--not if Wheezer was to stay alive. Regular and steady, that was the word, said Wheezer.

Wheezer got all his holes bored and the dynamite planted in them. This was a lot of dynamite left over when we traded the _Weeping Annie_; we'd kept it in the hold of the _Happy Day_, which was another reason for Scoot to sleep aboard her nights. He said he wasn't going to let her blow up some night and no one on board to prove who did it.

When we were all ready on deck, Scoot said he guessed he'd take a chance on her engines. He would not bet on what would happen, but he guaranteed we'd get action of some kind, even if it was no more than a cylinder-head blown through the side of the ship, if we'd only come below and help him out. So we passed him this and that, turned this jigger and that jigger to his orders, and by and by he lights a row of jets and her engines turned all right.

"Any time now," says Scoot, and I touched off the dynamite, and what looked like a million cubic yards of mixed stuff comes splattering up from under her bow. William T., who was leaning over the bow to see how it worked, got most of the oil, that being on top. Then I gave Scoot the bells, he backed her engines, and off she came smooth and easy.

While William T. was picking the oil and sand and mud and sea-water out of his eyes and ears and nose and mouth, and complaining that somebody oughter tipped him off, I called to him to shift the _Happy Day's_ line so she could drift astern of the ship. "And whatever yuh do, son, hang onter her line," Wheezer warned him. By this time William had shed his first independent views of things and was obeying orders fine; so when the _Happy Day_ went whirling astern, William was hanging on to the end of the line. Down the deck he went skidding on his heels, and over the rail, still hanging on to the line.

Finding himself overboard, he climbed up on the _Happy Day_. By this time we were well off the bank in pretty good water, and I sung out to William that I would swing around and get him, and gave the necessary bells when the time came for Scoot to back her; but Scoot, I guess, wasn't yet full shipmates with his oil-burning machinery, for we kept right on going ahead till we went clean through and over the _Happy Day_.

I remember seeing the cat climbing up the hammer hoist when it saw what was coming and clawing into its place up top; and how when the _Happy_ went under and the tall hoist careened over toward us, the cat made one flying leap on to the oil-ship's deck. When Scoot heard of that later, he said: "We'll name it Confucius--a wonderful, wise cat."

When William T. saw what was coming, he took a running long dive and overboard from the other end of the _Happy Day_. Wheezer stove in the heads of four or five more barrels of oil and dumped them over the side so's to make it easier for William clawing around in the seaway. When he came swimming aboard, he was wanting to know wasn't there any jobs that didn't require him to swaller any more oil--shovelling coal or working bilge-pumps, he didn't care. So we let him go down to the engine-room to help out Scoot.

We ought to have seen the morning papers before we did to enjoy what happened next. Captain Davis of the _Niobe_ was to depart at daybreak to make another desperate attempt to save the oil-ship in the teeth of the storm, the morning papers said. And he did. We met him on our way back to Bayport, and he steamed around us two or three times. Then he steamed away for Westport. He didn't say a word himself, but she carried the most eloquent stern, the _Niobe_, that ever I looked at through glasses when she was steaming away.

The oil-ship was down by the head a trifle where the dynamite had loosened her bow-plates a little, but nothing to hurt. We got her into port all right.

But getting a salvaged ship into port don't always end a man's troubles. There was a slick young lawyer came to us. He said he'd like to handle our case. We asked what his charge would be, and he said: "Oh, that will be all right--I'll make my price to suit you boys." We said all right, go ahead, and "Now, boys," he says then, "what's the story? Give it to me straight."

I tells him the story. He rubs his hands and chuckles, and says: "Good! Great! Nothing to it--a pipe! But listen to me, boys. When you get up there in court, don't go trying to make any joke of it the same as you just done to me. Everything is all fixed up nicely for you to play heroes' parts. Here are all the newspaper accounts--look--of Captain Davies's heroic work and seamanship, as told by Captain Judkins, and of Captain Judkins's humane and heroic work as told by Davies. Even the crew--look--give out interviews of what heroes they were. And, lemme tell you, I've seen the _Happy Day_ many a time, and I wouldn't go outside in her for a million dollars. Now play it up, play it up--the storm, the peril, your own heroic efforts, you know."

Which was all right to say; but imagine any human being getting up to tell of our trip and leave out the funny little parts, especially when we see Judkins sitting in a back bench listening, though he didn't listen too long. He all at once got up and didn't come back.

In the old days we'd have been awarded 50 or 60 per cent for our part, and she was a million-dollar ship with her cargo; but the insurance companies don't let any loose-footed seafarers put across anything like that these days. We got thirty thousand dollars for salving the ship, and ten thousand more for the loss of the _Happy Day_.

Our slick lawyer said we hadn't played it up right. "But never mind," he said; "I've been allowed full damages for the _Happy Day_ and awards for your time and some of the risk you-all ran. There's twenty thousand for you boys."

Wheezer and Scoot looked at me, and I looked at the lawyer. "Twenty thousand? Don't you think it's too much for us?" I asks.

"Why," he says, "it is a lot o' money for you boys to be carrying away for one night's work. But I generally split it that way--fifty-fifty."

We were in his office. I told Wheezer and Scoot to wait for me below. "Perhaps there'd better be no witnesses," I whispered to Scoot, and they got out.

The bright young lawyer takes another look at me after I lock the door and come back to him. "What do you mean to do?" he says.

And I said: "First, I'm going to give you one whale of a beating."

"You lay your hands on me," he says, "and I'll have you up for assault and battery. I'll show every mark in open court."

"I'm going to mark you," I said, "where you won't show them in any open court."

And I did. "And that's only the beginning," I said; but about then he agreed to call in Wheezer and Scoot; and, for instructing us to comport ourselves with dignity before the high court, we thought five hundred was about right, and after another little chat he agreed it was. We gave William T. the same for what he'd done, and he stayed drunk for a week at the Blue Light, which is what we reckoned he would do. But he was his own boss ashore.

Before I was fairly home the wife rushes me over to the little house she'd the option on. Being only two blocks south of the boulevard didn't make any hit with me, for the next thing I could see where she'd be breaking into society. But when I see the baby that I'd left kicking his legs in a baby-carriage--when I see him sprinting around the sun-parlor on his own feet, I begin to see the beauty of sun-parlors. "Take it," I said.

She certainly was tickled. "I always knew," she said, before I had time to say another word, "that all you needed was to apply yourself steadily to make your fortune."

Well, she's a great little woman, and what's the good of hurrying up to break illusions? I waited all of two hours before I told her how I made the price of the house.

The Bull-Fight

"What with these young schools aboard ship and chocolate caramels where bottled beer was one time in the cantine, 'tis a changed navy we've come to."

There was Porto Bello with its painted walls, there was the liberty boat at the gangway, and there was Monaghan with nothing but abuse for all present institutions.

"'Twas a good adventure the navy was once, but 'tis a kind of factory they would be making of it, with pay-days, not fightin' days, the grand thing to be lookin' for'ard to.

"And oh," he sighs after a breath, "the hearty arguments a liberty party would find to their elbows in any foreign port of importance in the old days! But now--puh!"

"Monaghan," I says, "is it in human nature, do you think, to alter so wonderfully in one short generation?"

"'Tisn't me," says Monaghan, "that reads shelves of books from the ship's library, includin' poetry. Go on, you; cling to your hopeful views, till some day you die of them. But for me--I'll go with you on no shore liberty this day."

So over the side I went without Monaghan, but our executive--him we called Regulations--was there to speed our going from the gangway grating.

"Remember, now," says Regulations, "no street brawlings and no ordering rounds of intoxicating drinks in cantinas. Whoever isn't there when the liberty boat leaves the landing-pier this afternoon, and whoever returns aboard here under the influence of liquor I shall send 'em to the brig. And don't think for one moment that any one of you can fool me with any cock-and-bull story of what happened you."

No great evil in Regulations, but a pity, I was thinking, he would not leave a little more to our imagination and maybe good intentions. Some of us there were, I knew, that would like to think that 'twas maybe not altogether fear of the ship's discipline would be holding us to our good behavior.

Meditating, maybe sadly, I was on the distrust of Regulations and the defection of Monaghan, when I looked up to find myself abreast of a cantina that was run by an Americanized native called Tony, the same who one time kept a fruit-stand on West Street in New York till he discovered that bananas and pineapples and lemons were not the most staple articles of diet on the water-front of a great American port. "Tony," I says, "'twould grieve a certain superior officer of my ship exceedingly were I to order one single draft of spirituous liquor on this my first day of liberty in two months. But 'tis no summer resort on the New England coast this is. Will you, in God's name, give me something to cool the blazing throat of me?"

"When I tended bar in a hotel one time in a prohibition State in your country," says West Street Tony, "we made one drink especially for temperance people. I mix one now," he says; and he did.

"Lemonado Porto Bello we call that down here," says Tony.

"'Tis satisfying," I said; and had another, and passed on my way.

'Twas truly a beautiful port--Porto Bello--in the low latitudes; and there were little children playing in the streets and long-tailed birds singing in the trees; and from one place to another I passed, having here and there along the way a lemonado Porto Bello by way of abating the heat of the hot morning. And so, until approaching noon found me under the portales of a hotel on a fine high hill.

'Twas in truth a hot morning. The Hot Coast the guide-books in the ship's library called all that country, and no misname in that; but when a waiter steps up with a negligée air and a towel and swipes a battalion of camping flies from the marble deck of my table to the scuppers of the sidewalk, and says: "Vairy gooda beer on icey--two bottlas for-r da one-a peso," like a friendly soul who would help out a thirsty and innocent foreigner, I said no.

"No," I said; "no intoxicating beverages will I order myself this day. Lemonade Porto Bello," I said: "duo"--holding up two fingers to maybe help out his lack of his own language. "One for me, one for him," I said, and pointing to a glass a young fellow with an air of preoccupation and melancholy at the next table had standing empty to his elbow.

"Bueno, bueno!" said the waiter, and in good season brought me one and replaced the empty glass of the abstracted young man with the other.

It was, as I said, a hot day. As to that, I've yet to see a morning in twenty years of cruising on that blasted coast when it wasn't hot. Sitting in the shade of the portales on that high hill and almost a breeze coming in from the waters of the Gulf--even so, all ready to soak iced Porto Bello lemonados into me, even so it was hot.

And while I'm waiting there having another lemonade, and by and by another and another, a young girl enters the shade of the portales; and no man could carry two eyes in his head and not notice the loveliness of her. Lovely and good. I could feel it in the air when I wasn't looking straight at her. Women's hats and men's cigarettes bobbed in high approval, and the watery eyes of two gray-whiskered old rounders grew almost bright and decent to look at when from over the tops of their newspapers they gazed after her in passing.

My little table was up by the main entrance, and as if for no more than to let her lovely glance rest on some manly creature who might be sitting unattached in the neighborhood, she stopped on the lowest step of the hotel doorway and her eyes were slanted in my general direction.

"Jeepers!" I said to myself, for even with a gray hair here and there impinging on the black mop above my temples--even so, I needed no ship's surgeon to testify that the pension-list was a long way from me yet. And as for the rank, 'twas well I knew that when the heart goes cruising 'tis little the rank matters. Gunner's mate, even as an admiral of the line, may well have his fair romance: that I knew.

But what man of intelligence and natively good intentions may run riot through the years of tempestuous youth and not arrive some day at a belated wisdom? After another upward glance I saw that not for me was that look of virginal yearning and distress. The line of fire of her gaze had for its target the back of the head of the young fellow who so melancholy and abstracted was gazing on the blue waters of the Gulf from the next table.

"Jeepers!" I said to myself, "is he asleep or what?" and above my lemonade I points a soft cough at him.