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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Men, Women, and Boats, by Stephen Crane
+#5 in our series by Stephen Crane
+
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+Title: Men, Women, and Boats
+
+Author: Stephen Crane
+
+Release Date: January, 2005 [EBook #7239]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on March 30, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MEN, WOMEN, AND BOATS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by John Bilderback, Eric Eldred, Charles Franks
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+MEN, WOMEN, AND BOATS
+
+By Stephen Crane
+
+Edited With an Introduction by Vincent Starrett
+
+
+
+
+NOTE
+
+A Number of the tales and sketches here brought together appear now for
+the first time between covers; others for the first time between covers
+in this country. All have been gathered from out-of-print volumes and
+old magazine files.
+
+"The Open Boat," one of Stephen Crane's finest stories, is used with the
+courteous permission of Doubleday, Page & Co., holders of the copyright.
+Its companion masterpiece, "The Blue Hotel," because of copyright
+complications, has had to be omitted, greatly to the regret of the
+editor.
+
+After the death of Stephen Crane, a haphazard and undiscriminating
+gathering of his earlier tales and sketches appeared in London under the
+misleading title, "Last Words." From this volume, now rarely met with, a
+number of characteristic minor works have been selected, and these will
+be new to Crane's American admirers; as follows: "The Reluctant
+Voyagers," "The End of the Battle," "The Upturned Face," "An Episode of
+War," "A Desertion," "Four Men in a Cave," "The Mesmeric Mountain,"
+"London Impressions," "The Snake."
+
+Three of our present collection, printed by arrangement, appeared in the
+London (1898) edition of "The Open Boat and Other Stories," published by
+William Heinemann, but did not occur in the American volume of that
+title. They are "An Experiment in Misery," "The Duel that was not
+Fought," and "The Pace of Youth."
+
+For the rest, "A Dark Brown Dog," "A Tent in Agony," and "The Scotch
+Express," are here printed for the first time in a book.
+
+For the general title of the present collection, the editor alone is
+responsible.
+
+V. S.
+
+
+
+MEN, WOMEN AND BOATS
+
+CONTENTS
+
+STEPHEN CRANE: _An Estimate_
+
+THE OPEN BOAT
+
+THE RELUCTANT VOYAGERS
+
+THE END OF THE BATTLE
+
+THE UPTURNED FACE
+
+AN EPISODE OF WAR
+
+AN EXPERIMENT IN MISERY
+
+THE DUEL THAT WAS NOT FOUGHT
+
+A DESERTION
+
+THE DARK-BROWN DOG
+
+THE PACE OF YOUTH
+
+SULLIVAN COUNTY SKETCHES
+
+  A TENT IN AGONY
+
+  FOUR MEN IN A CAVE
+
+  THE MESMERIC MOUNTAIN
+
+THE SNAKE
+
+LONDON IMPRESSIONS
+
+THE SCOTCH EXPRESS
+
+
+
+
+STEPHEN CRANE: _AN ESTIMATE_
+
+
+It hardly profits us to conjecture what Stephen Crane might have written
+about the World War had he lived. Certainly, he would have been in it,
+in one capacity or another. No man had a greater talent for war and
+personal adventure, nor a finer art in describing it. Few writers of
+recent times could so well describe the poetry of motion as manifested
+in the surge and flow of battle, or so well depict the isolated deed of
+heroism in its stark simplicity and terror.
+
+To such an undertaking as Henri Barbusse's "Under Fire," that powerful,
+brutal book, Crane would have brought an analytical genius almost
+clairvoyant. He possessed an uncanny vision; a descriptive ability
+photographic in its clarity and its care for minutiae--yet
+unphotographic in that the big central thing often is omitted, to be
+felt rather than seen in the occult suggestion of detail. Crane would
+have seen and depicted the grisly horror of it all, as did Barbusse, but
+also he would have seen the glory and the ecstasy and the wonder of it,
+and over that his poetry would have been spread.
+
+While Stephen Crane was an excellent psychologist, he was also a true
+poet. Frequently his prose was finer poetry than his deliberate essays
+in poesy. His most famous book, "The Red Badge of Courage," is
+essentially a psychological study, a delicate clinical dissection of the
+soul of a recruit, but it is also a _tour de force_ of the
+imagination. When he wrote the book he had never seen a battle: he had
+to place himself in the situation of another. Years later, when he came
+out of the Greco-Turkish _fracas_, he remarked to a friend: "'The
+Red Badge' is all right."
+
+Written by a youth who had scarcely passed his majority, this book has
+been compared with Tolstoy's "Sebastopol" and Zola's "La Debacle," and
+with some of the short stories of Ambrose Bierce. The comparison with
+Bierce's work is legitimate; with the other books, I think, less so.
+Tolstoy and Zola see none of the traditional beauty of battle; they
+apply themselves to a devoted--almost obscene--study of corpses and
+carnage generally; and they lack the American's instinct for the rowdy
+commonplace, the natural, the irreverent, which so materially aids his
+realism. In "The Red Badge of Courage" invariably the tone is kept down
+where one expects a height: the most heroic deeds are accomplished with
+studied awkwardness.
+
+Crane was an obscure free-lance when he wrote this book. The effort, he
+says, somewhere, "was born of pain--despair, almost." It was a better
+piece of work, however, for that very reason, as Crane knew. It is far
+from flawless. It has been remarked that it bristles with as many
+grammatical errors as with bayonets; but it is a big canvas, and I am
+certain that many of Crane's deviations from the rules of polite
+rhetoric were deliberate experiments, looking to effect--effect which,
+frequently, he gained.
+
+Stephen Crane "arrived" with this book. There are, of course, many who
+never have heard of him, to this day, but there was a time when he was
+very much talked of. That was in the middle nineties, following
+publication of "The Red Badge of Courage," although even before that he
+had occasioned a brief flurry with his weird collection of poems called
+"The Black Riders and Other Lines." He was highly praised, and highly
+abused and laughed at; but he seemed to be "made." We have largely
+forgotten since. It is a way we have.
+
+Personally, I prefer his short stories to his novels and his poems;
+those, for instance, contained in "The Open Boat," in "Wounds in the
+Rain," and in "The Monster." The title-story in that first collection is
+perhaps his finest piece of work. Yet what is it? A truthful record of
+an adventure of his own in the filibustering days that preceded our war
+with Spain; the faithful narrative of the voyage of an open boat, manned
+by a handful of shipwrecked men. But Captain Bligh's account of
+_his_ small boat journey, after he had been sent adrift by the
+mutineers of the _Bounty_, seems tame in comparison, although of
+the two the English sailor's voyage was the more perilous.
+
+In "The Open Boat" Crane again gains his effects by keeping down the
+tone where another writer might have attempted "fine writing" and have
+been lost. In it perhaps is most strikingly evident the poetic cadences
+of his prose: its rhythmic, monotonous flow is the flow of the gray
+water that laps at the sides of the boat, that rises and recedes in
+cruel waves, "like little pointed rocks." It is a desolate picture, and
+the tale is one of our greatest short stories. In the other tales that
+go to make up the volume are wild, exotic glimpses of Latin-America. I
+doubt whether the color and spirit of that region have been better
+rendered than in Stephen Crane's curious, distorted, staccato sentences.
+
+"War Stories" is the laconic sub-title of "Wounds in the Rain." It was
+not war on a grand scale that Crane saw in the Spanish-American
+complication, in which he participated as a war correspondent; no such
+war as the recent horror. But the occasions for personal heroism were no
+fewer than always, and the opportunities for the exercise of such powers
+of trained and appreciative understanding and sympathy as Crane
+possessed, were abundant. For the most part, these tales are episodic,
+reports of isolated instances--the profanely humorous experiences of
+correspondents, the magnificent courage of signalmen under fire, the
+forgotten adventure of a converted yacht--but all are instinct with the
+red fever of war, and are backgrounded with the choking smoke of battle.
+Never again did Crane attempt the large canvas of "The Red Badge of
+Courage." Before he had seen war, he imagined its immensity and painted
+it with the fury and fidelity of a Verestchagin; when he was its
+familiar, he singled out its minor, crimson passages for briefer but no
+less careful delineation.
+
+In this book, again, his sense of the poetry of motion is vividly
+evident. We see men going into action, wave on wave, or in scattering
+charges; we hear the clink of their accoutrements and their breath
+whistling through their teeth. They are not men going into action at
+all, but men going about their business, which at the moment happens to
+be the capture of a trench. They are neither heroes nor cowards. Their
+faces reflect no particular emotion save, perhaps, a desire to get
+somewhere. They are a line of men running for a train, or following a
+fire engine, or charging a trench. It is a relentless picture, ever
+changing, ever the same. But it contains poetry, too, in rich, memorable
+passages.
+
+In "The Monster and Other Stories," there is a tale called "The Blue
+Hotel". A Swede, its central figure, toward the end manages to get
+himself murdered. Crane's description of it is just as casual as that.
+The story fills a dozen pages of the book; but the social injustice of
+the whole world is hinted in that space; the upside-downness of
+creation, right prostrate, wrong triumphant,--a mad, crazy world. The
+incident of the murdered Swede is just part of the backwash of it all,
+but it is an illuminating fragment. The Swede was slain, not by the
+gambler whose knife pierced his thick hide: he was the victim of a
+condition for which he was no more to blame than the man who stabbed
+him. Stephen Crane thus speaks through the lips of one of the
+characters:--
+
+    "We are all in it! This poor gambler isn't even
+    a noun. He is a kind of an adverb. Every sin is
+    the result of a collaboration. We, five of us, have
+    collaborated in the murder of this Swede. Usually
+    there are from a dozen to forty women really involved
+    in every murder, but in this case it seems
+    to be only five men--you, I, Johnnie, Old Scully,
+    and that fool of an unfortunate gambler came
+    merely as a culmination, the apex of a human movement,
+    and gets all the punishment."
+
+And then this typical and arresting piece of irony:--
+
+    "The corpse of the Swede, alone in the saloon,
+    had its eyes fixed upon a dreadful legend that
+    dwelt atop of the cash-machine: 'This registers the
+    amount of your purchase.'"
+
+In "The Monster," the ignorance, prejudice and cruelty of an entire
+community are sharply focussed. The realism is painful; one blushes for
+mankind. But while this story really belongs in the volume called
+"Whilomville Stories," it is properly left out of that series. The
+Whilomville stories are pure comedy, and "The Monster" is a hideous
+tragedy.
+
+Whilomville is any obscure little village one may happen to think of. To
+write of it with such sympathy and understanding, Crane must have done
+some remarkable listening in Boyville. The truth is, of course, he was a
+boy himself--"a wonderful boy," somebody called him--and was possessed
+of the boy mind. These tales are chiefly funny because they are so true
+--boy stories written for adults; a child, I suppose, would find them
+dull. In none of his tales is his curious understanding of human moods
+and emotions better shown.
+
+A stupid critic once pointed out that Crane, in his search for striking
+effects, had been led into "frequent neglect of the time-hallowed rights
+of certain words," and that in his pursuit of color he "falls
+occasionally into almost ludicrous mishap." The smug pedantry of the
+quoted lines is sufficient answer to the charges, but in support of
+these assertions the critic quoted certain passages and phrases. He
+objected to cheeks "scarred" by tears, to "dauntless" statues, and to
+"terror-stricken" wagons. The very touches of poetic impressionism that
+largely make for Crane's greatness, are cited to prove him an ignoramus.
+There is the finest of poetic imagery in the suggestions subtly conveyed
+by Crane's tricky adjectives, the use of which was as deliberate with
+him as his choice of a subject. But Crane was an imagist before our
+modern imagists were known.
+
+This unconventional use of adjectives is marked in the Whilomville
+tales. In one of them Crane refers to the "solemn odor of burning
+turnips." It is the most nearly perfect characterization of burning
+turnips conceivable: can anyone improve upon that "solemn odor"?
+
+Stephen Crane's first venture was "Maggie: A Girl of the Streets." It
+was, I believe, the first hint of naturalism in American letters. It was
+not a best-seller; it offers no solution of life; it is an episodic bit
+of slum fiction, ending with the tragic finality of a Greek drama. It
+is a skeleton of a novel rather than a novel, but it is a powerful
+outline, written about a life Crane had learned to know as a newspaper
+reporter in New York. It is a singularly fine piece of analysis, or a
+bit of extraordinarily faithful reporting, as one may prefer; but not a
+few French and Russian writers have failed to accomplish in two volumes
+what Crane achieved in two hundred pages. In the same category is
+"George's Mother," a triumph of inconsequential detail piling up with a
+cumulative effect quite overwhelming.
+
+Crane published two volumes of poetry--"The Black Riders" and "War is
+Kind." Their appearance in print was jeeringly hailed; yet Crane was
+only pioneering in the free verse that is today, if not definitely
+accepted, at least more than tolerated. I like the following love poem
+as well as any rhymed and conventionally metrical ballad that I know:--
+
+  "Should the wide world roll away,
+  Leaving black terror,
+  Limitless night,
+  Nor God, nor man, nor place to stand
+  Would be to me essential,
+  If thou and thy white arms were there
+  And the fall to doom a long way."
+
+"If war be kind," wrote a clever reviewer, when the second volume
+appeared, "then Crane's verse may be poetry, Beardsley's black and white
+creations may be art, and this may be called a book";--a smart summing
+up that is cherished by cataloguers to this day, in describing the
+volume for collectors. Beardsley needs no defenders, and it is fairly
+certain that the clever reviewer had not read the book, for certainly
+Crane had no illusions about the kindness of war. The title-poem of the
+volume is an amazingly beautiful satire which answers all criticism.
+
+  "Do not weep, maiden, for war is kind.
+  Because your lover threw wild hands toward the sky
+  And the affrighted steed ran on alone,
+  Do not weep.
+  War is kind.
+
+  "Hoarse, booming drums of the regiment,
+  Little souls who thirst for fight,
+  These men were born to drill and die.
+  The unexplained glory flies above them,
+  Great is the battle-god, and his kingdom--
+  A field where a thousand corpses lie.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  "Mother whose heart hung humble as a button
+  On the bright splendid shroud of your son,
+  Do not weep.
+  War is kind."
+
+Poor Stephen Crane! Like most geniuses, he had his weaknesses and his
+failings; like many, if not most, geniuses, he was ill. He died of
+tuberculosis, tragically young. But what a comrade he must have been,
+with his extraordinary vision, his keen, sardonic comment, his
+fearlessness and his failings!
+
+Just a glimpse of Crane's last days is afforded by a letter written from
+England by Robert Barr, his friend--Robert Barr, who collaborated with
+Crane in "The 0' Ruddy," a rollicking tale of old Ireland, or, rather,
+who completed it at Crane's death, to satisfy his friend's earnest
+request. The letter is dated from Hillhead, Woldingham, Surrey, June 8,
+1900, and runs as follows:--
+
+    "My Dear ----
+
+    "I was delighted to hear from you, and was much
+    interested to see the article on Stephen Crane you
+    sent me. It seems to me the harsh judgment of an
+    unappreciative, commonplace person on a man of
+    genius. Stephen had many qualities which lent
+    themselves to misapprehension, but at the core he
+    was the finest of men, generous to a fault, with
+    something of the old-time recklessness which used
+    to gather in the ancient literary taverns of London.
+    I always fancied that Edgar Allan Poe revisited the
+    earth as Stephen Crane, trying again, succeeding
+    again, failing again, and dying ten years sooner
+    than he did on the other occasion of his stay on
+    earth.
+
+    "When your letter came I had just returned from
+    Dover, where I stayed four days to see Crane off
+    for the Black Forest. There was a thin thread of
+    hope that he might recover, but to me he looked like
+    a man already dead. When he spoke, or, rather,
+    whispered, there was all the accustomed humor in
+    his sayings. I said to him that I would go over to
+    the Schwarzwald in a few weeks, when he was getting
+    better, and that we would take some convalescent
+    rambles together. As his wife was listening
+    he said faintly: 'I'll look forward to that,' but he
+    smiled at me, and winked slowly, as much as to say:
+    'You damned humbug, you know I'll take no more
+    rambles in this world.' Then, as if the train of
+    thought suggested what was looked on before as the
+    crisis of his illness, he murmured: 'Robert, when
+    you come to the hedge--that we must all go over--
+    it isn't bad. You feel sleepy--and--you don't
+    care. Just a little dreamy curiosity--which world
+    you're really in--that's all.'
+
+    "To-morrow, Saturday, the 9th, I go again to
+    Dover to meet his body. He will rest for a little
+    while in England, a country that was always good
+    to him, then to America, and his journey will be
+    ended.
+
+    "I've got the unfinished manuscript of his last
+    novel here beside me, a rollicking Irish tale, different
+    from anything he ever wrote before. Stephen
+    thought I was the only person who could finish it,
+    and he was too ill for me to refuse. I don't know
+    what to do about the matter, for I never could work
+    up another man's ideas. Even your vivid imagination
+    could hardly conjecture anything more ghastly
+    than the dying man, lying by an open window overlooking
+    the English channel, relating in a sepulchral
+    whisper the comic situations of his humorous hero
+    so that I might take up the thread of his story.
+
+    "From the window beside which I write this I
+    can see down in the valley Ravensbrook House,
+    where Crane used to live and where Harold Frederic,
+    he and I spent many a merry night together. When
+    the Romans occupied Britain, some of their legions,
+    parched with thirst, were wandering about these dry
+    hills with the chance of finding water or perishing.
+    They watched the ravens, and so came to the stream
+    which rises under my place and flows past Stephen's
+    former home; hence the name, Ravensbrook.
+
+    "It seems a strange coincidence that the greatest
+    modern writer on war should set himself down
+    where the greatest ancient warrior, Caesar, probably
+    stopped to quench his thirst.
+
+    "Stephen died at three in the morning, the same
+    sinister hour which carried away our friend Frederic
+    nineteen months before. At midnight, in Crane's
+    fourteenth-century house in Sussex, we two tried
+    to lure back the ghost of Frederic into that house of
+    ghosts, and to our company, thinking that if reappearing
+    were ever possible so strenuous a man as
+    Harold would somehow shoulder his way past the
+    guards, but he made no sign. I wonder if the less
+    insistent Stephen will suggest some ingenious method
+    by which the two can pass the barrier. I can imagine
+    Harold cursing on the other side, and welcoming
+    the more subtle assistance of his finely fibred
+    friend.
+
+    "I feel like the last of the Three Musketeers, the
+    other two gone down in their duel with Death. I
+    am wondering if, within the next two years, I also
+    shall get the challenge. If so, I shall go to the competing
+    ground the more cheerfully that two such
+    good fellows await the outcome on the other side.
+
+    "Ever your friend,
+
+    "ROBERT BARR."
+
+The last of the Three Musketeers is gone, now, although he outlived his
+friends by some years. Robert Barr died in 1912. Perhaps they are still
+debating a joint return.
+
+There could be, perhaps, no better close for a paper on Stephen Crane
+than the subjoined paragraph from a letter written by him to a Rochester
+editor:--
+
+    "The one thing that deeply pleases me is the
+    fact that men of sense invariably believe me to be
+    sincere. I know that my work does not amount to
+    a string of dried beans--I always calmly admit it--but
+    I also know that I do the best that is in me
+    without regard to praise or blame. When I was
+    the mark for every humorist in the country, I went
+    ahead; and now when I am the mark for only fifty
+    per cent of the humorists of the country, I go
+    ahead; for I understand that a man is born into the
+    world with his own pair of eyes, and he is not at all
+    responsible for his vision--he is merely responsible
+    for his quality of personal honesty. To keep
+    close to this personal honesty is my supreme ambition."
+
+VINCENT STARRETT.
+
+
+
+
+THE OPEN BOAT
+
+A Tale intended to be after the fact. Being the experience of four men
+from the sunk steamer "Commodore"
+
+
+I
+
+None of them knew the color of the sky. Their eyes glanced level, and
+were fastened upon the waves that swept toward them. These waves were of
+the hue of slate, save for the tops, which were of foaming white, and
+all of the men knew the colors of the sea. The horizon narrowed and
+widened, and dipped and rose, and at all times its edge was jagged with
+waves that seemed thrust up in points like rocks. Many a man ought to
+have a bath-tub larger than the boat which here rode upon the sea. These
+waves were most wrongfully and barbarously abrupt and tall, and each
+froth-top was a problem in small-boat navigation.
+
+The cook squatted in the bottom and looked with both eyes at the six
+inches of gunwale which separated him from the ocean. His sleeves were
+rolled over his fat forearms, and the two flaps of his unbuttoned vest
+dangled as he bent to bail out the boat. Often he said: "Gawd! That was
+a narrow clip." As he remarked it he invariably gazed eastward over the
+broken sea.
+
+The oiler, steering with one of the two oars in the boat, sometimes
+raised himself suddenly to keep clear of water that swirled in over the
+stern. It was a thin little oar and it seemed often ready to snap.
+
+The correspondent, pulling at the other oar, watched the waves and
+wondered why he was there.
+
+The injured captain, lying in the bow, was at this time buried in that
+profound dejection and indifference which comes, temporarily at least,
+to even the bravest and most enduring when, willy nilly, the firm fails,
+the army loses, the ship goes down. The mind of the master of a vessel
+is rooted deep in the timbers of her, though he commanded for a day or a
+decade, and this captain had on him the stern impression of a scene in
+the greys of dawn of seven turned faces, and later a stump of a top-mast
+with a white ball on it that slashed to and fro at the waves, went low
+and lower, and down. Thereafter there was something strange in his
+voice. Although steady, it was, deep with mourning, and of a quality
+beyond oration or tears.
+
+"Keep 'er a little more south, Billie," said he.
+
+"'A little more south,' sir," said the oiler in the stern.
+
+A seat in this boat was not unlike a seat upon a bucking broncho, and by
+the same token, a broncho is not much smaller. The craft pranced and
+reared, and plunged like an animal. As each wave came, and she rose for
+it, she seemed like a horse making at a fence outrageously high. The
+manner of her scramble over these walls of water is a mystic thing, and,
+moreover, at the top of them were ordinarily these problems in white
+water, the foam racing down from the summit of each wave, requiring a
+new leap, and a leap from the air. Then, after scornfully bumping a
+crest, she would slide, and race, and splash down a long incline, and
+arrive bobbing and nodding in front of the next menace.
+
+A singular disadvantage of the sea lies in the fact that after
+successfully surmounting one wave you discover that there is another
+behind it just as important and just as nervously anxious to do
+something effective in the way of swamping boats. In a ten-foot dingey
+one can get an idea of the resources of the sea in the line of waves
+that is not probable to the average experience which is never at sea in
+a dingey. As each slatey wall of water approached, it shut all else from
+the view of the men in the boat, and it was not difficult to imagine
+that this particular wave was the final outburst of the ocean, the last
+effort of the grim water. There was a terrible grace in the move of the
+waves, and they came in silence, save for the snarling of the crests.
+
+In the wan light, the faces of the men must have been grey. Their eyes
+must have glinted in strange ways as they gazed steadily astern. Viewed
+from a balcony, the whole thing would doubtless have been weirdly
+picturesque. But the men in the boat had no time to see it, and if they
+had had leisure there were other things to occupy their minds. The sun
+swung steadily up the sky, and they knew it was broad day because the
+color of the sea changed from slate to emerald-green, streaked with
+amber lights, and the foam was like tumbling snow. The process of the
+breaking day was unknown to them. They were aware only of this effect
+upon the color of the waves that rolled toward them.
+
+In disjointed sentences the cook and the correspondent argued as to the
+difference between a life-saving station and a house of refuge. The cook
+had said: "There's a house of refuge just north of the Mosquito Inlet
+Light, and as soon as they see us, they'll come off in their boat and
+pick us up."
+
+"As soon as who see us?" said the correspondent.
+
+"The crew," said the cook.
+
+"Houses of refuge don't have crews," said the correspondent. "As I
+understand them, they are only places where clothes and grub are stored
+for the benefit of shipwrecked people. They don't carry crews."
+
+"Oh, yes, they do," said the cook.
+
+"No, they don't," said the correspondent.
+
+"Well, we're not there yet, anyhow," said the oiler, in the stern.
+
+"Well," said the cook, "perhaps it's not a house of refuge that I'm
+thinking of as being near Mosquito Inlet Light. Perhaps it's a life-
+saving station."
+
+"We're not there yet," said the oiler, in the stern.
+
+
+II
+
+As the boat bounced from the top of each wave, the wind tore through the
+hair of the hatless men, and as the craft plopped her stern down again
+the spray splashed past them. The crest of each of these waves was a
+hill, from the top of which the men surveyed, for a moment, a broad
+tumultuous expanse, shining and wind-riven. It was probably splendid. It
+was probably glorious, this play of the free sea, wild with lights of
+emerald and white and amber.
+
+"Bully good thing it's an on-shore wind," said the cook; "If not, where
+would we be? Wouldn't have a show."
+
+"That's right," said the correspondent.
+
+The busy oiler nodded his assent.
+
+Then the captain, in the bow, chuckled in a way that expressed humor,
+contempt, tragedy, all in one. "Do you think We've got much of a show
+now, boys?" said he.
+
+Whereupon the three were silent, save for a trifle of hemming and
+hawing. To express any particular optimism at this time they felt to be
+childish and stupid, but they all doubtless possessed this sense of the
+situation in their mind. A young man thinks doggedly at such times. On
+the other hand, the ethics of their condition was decidedly against any
+open suggestion of hopelessness. So they were silent.
+
+"Oh, well," said the captain, soothing his children, "We'll get ashore
+all right."
+
+But there was that in his tone which made them think, so the oiler
+quoth: "Yes! If this wind holds!"
+
+The cook was bailing: "Yes! If we don't catch hell in the surf."
+
+Canton flannel gulls flew near and far. Sometimes they sat down on the
+sea, near patches of brown seaweed that rolled on the waves with a
+movement like carpets on a line in a gale. The birds sat comfortably in
+groups, and they were envied by some in the dingey, for the wrath of the
+sea was no more to them than it was to a covey of prairie chickens a
+thousand miles inland. Often they came very close and stared at the men
+with black bead-like eyes. At these times they were uncanny and sinister
+in their unblinking scrutiny, and the men hooted angrily at them,
+telling them to be gone. One came, and evidently decided to alight on
+the top of the captain's head. The bird flew parallel to the boat and
+did not circle, but made short sidelong jumps in the air in chicken-
+fashion. His black eyes were wistfully fixed upon the captain's head.
+"Ugly brute," said the oiler to the bird. "You look as if you were made
+with a jack-knife." The cook and the correspondent swore darkly at the
+creature. The captain naturally wished to knock it away with the end of
+the heavy painter; but he did not dare do it, because anything
+resembling an emphatic gesture would have capsized this freighted boat,
+and so with his open hand, the captain gently and carefully waved the
+gull away. After it had been discouraged from the pursuit the captain
+breathed easier on account of his hair, and others breathed easier
+because the bird struck their minds at this time as being somehow
+grewsome and ominous.
+
+In the meantime the oiler and the correspondent rowed And also they
+rowed.
+
+They sat together in the same seat, and each rowed an oar. Then the
+oiler took both oars; then the correspondent took both oars; then the
+oiler; then the correspondent. They rowed and they rowed. The very
+ticklish part of the business was when the time came for the reclining
+one in the stern to take his turn at the oars. By the very last star of
+truth, it is easier to steal eggs from under a hen than it was to change
+seats in the dingey. First the man in the stern slid his hand along the
+thwart and moved with care, as if he were of Sevres. Then the man in the
+rowing seat slid his hand along the other thwart. It was all done with
+most extraordinary care. As the two sidled past each other, the whole
+party kept watchful eyes on the coming wave, and the captain cried:
+"Look out now! Steady there!"
+
+The brown mats of seaweed that appeared from time to time were like
+islands, bits of earth. They were traveling, apparently, neither one way
+nor the other. They were, to all intents, stationary. They informed the
+men in the boat that it was making progress slowly toward the land.
+
+The captain, rearing cautiously in the bow, after the dingey soared on a
+great swell, said that he had seen the light-house at Mosquito Inlet.
+Presently the cook remarked that he had seen it. The correspondent was
+at the oars then, and for some reason he too wished to look at the
+lighthouse, but his back was toward the far shore and the waves were
+important, and for some time he could not seize an opportunity to turn
+his head. But at last there came a wave more gentle than the others, and
+when at the crest of it he swiftly scoured the western horizon.
+
+"See it?" said the captain.
+
+"No," said the correspondent slowly, "I didn't see anything."
+
+"Look again," said the captain. He pointed. "It's exactly in that
+direction."
+
+At the top of another wave, the correspondent did as he was bid, and
+this time his eyes chanced on a small still thing on the edge of the
+swaying horizon. It was precisely like the point of a pin. It took an
+anxious eye to find a light house so tiny.
+
+"Think we'll make it, captain?"
+
+"If this wind holds and the boat don't swamp, we can't do much else,"
+said the captain.
+
+The little boat, lifted by each towering sea, and splashed viciously by
+the crests, made progress that in the absence of seaweed was not
+apparent to those in her. She seemed just a wee thing wallowing,
+miraculously top-up, at the mercy of five oceans. Occasionally, a great
+spread of water, like white flames, swarmed into her.
+
+"Bail her, cook," said the captain serenely.
+
+"All right, captain," said the cheerful cook.
+
+
+III
+
+It would be difficult to describe the subtle brotherhood of men that was
+here established on the seas. No one said that it was so. No one
+mentioned it. But it dwelt in the boat, and each man felt it warm him.
+They were a captain, an oiler, a cook, and a correspondent, and they
+were friends, friends in a more curiously iron-bound degree than may be
+common. The hurt captain, lying against the water-jar in the bow, spoke
+always in a low voice and calmly, but he could never command a more
+ready and swiftly obedient crew than the motley three of the dingey. It
+was more than a mere recognition of what was best for the common safety.
+There was surely in it a quality that was personal and heartfelt. And
+after this devotion to the commander of the boat there was this
+comradeship that the correspondent, for instance, who had been taught to
+be cynical of men, knew even at the time was the best experience of his
+life. But no one said that it was so. No one mentioned it.
+
+"I wish we had a sail," remarked the captain. "We might try my overcoat
+on the end of an oar and give you two boys a chance to rest." So the
+cook and the correspondent held the mast and spread wide the overcoat.
+The oiler steered, and the little boat made good way with her new rig.
+Sometimes the oiler had to scull sharply to keep a sea from breaking
+into the boat, but otherwise sailing was a success.
+
+Meanwhile the lighthouse had been growing slowly larger. It had now
+almost assumed color, and appeared like a little grey shadow on the sky.
+The man at the oars could not be prevented from turning his head rather
+often to try for a glimpse of this little grey shadow.
+
+At last, from the top of each wave the men in the tossing boat could see
+land. Even as the lighthouse was an upright shadow on the sky, this land
+seemed but a long black shadow on the sea. It certainly was thinner than
+paper. "We must be about opposite New Smyrna," said the cook, who had
+coasted this shore often in schooners. "Captain, by the way, I believe
+they abandoned that life-saving station there about a year ago."
+
+"Did they?" said the captain.
+
+The wind slowly died away. The cook and the correspondent were not now
+obliged to slave in order to hold high the oar. But the waves continued
+their old impetuous swooping at the dingey, and the little craft, no
+longer under way, struggled woundily over them. The oiler or the
+correspondent took the oars again.
+
+Shipwrecks are _a propos_ of nothing. If men could only train for
+them and have them occur when the men had reached pink condition, there
+would be less drowning at sea. Of the four in the dingey none had slept
+any time worth mentioning for two days and two nights previous to
+embarking in the dingey, and in the excitement of clambering about the
+deck of a foundering ship they had also forgotten to eat heartily.
+
+For these reasons, and for others, neither the oiler nor the
+correspondent was fond of rowing at this time. The correspondent
+wondered ingenuously how in the name of all that was sane could there be
+people who thought it amusing to row a boat. It was not an amusement; it
+was a diabolical punishment, and even a genius of mental aberrations
+could never conclude that it was anything but a horror to the muscles
+and a crime against the back. He mentioned to the boat in general how
+the amusement of rowing struck him, and the weary-faced oiler smiled in
+full sympathy. Previously to the foundering, by the way, the oiler had
+worked double-watch in the engine-room of the ship.
+
+"Take her easy, now, boys," said the captain. "Don't spend yourselves.
+If we have to run a surf you'll need all your strength, because we'll
+sure have to swim for it. Take your time."
+
+Slowly the land arose from the sea. From a black line it became a line
+of black and a line of white, trees and sand. Finally, the captain said
+that he could make out a house on the shore. "That's the house of
+refuge, sure," said the cook. "They'll see us before long, and come out
+after us."
+
+The distant lighthouse reared high. "The keeper ought to be able to make
+us out now, if he's looking through a glass," said the captain. "He'll
+notify the life-saving people."
+
+"None of those other boats could have got ashore to give word of the
+wreck," said the oiler, in a low voice. "Else the lifeboat would be out
+hunting us."
+
+Slowly and beautifully the land loomed out of the sea. The wind came
+again. It had veered from the north-east to the south-east. Finally, a
+new sound struck the ears of the men in the boat. It was the low thunder
+of the surf on the shore. "We'll never be able to make the lighthouse
+now," said the captain. "Swing her head a little more north, Billie,"
+said he.
+
+"'A little more north,' sir," said the oiler.
+
+Whereupon the little boat turned her nose once more down the wind, and
+all but the oarsman watched the shore grow. Under the influence of this
+expansion doubt and direful apprehension was leaving the minds of the
+men. The management of the boat was still most absorbing, but it could
+not prevent a quiet cheerfulness. In an hour, perhaps, they would be
+ashore.
+
+Their backbones had become thoroughly used to balancing in the boat, and
+they now rode this wild colt of a dingey like circus men. The
+correspondent thought that he had been drenched to the skin, but
+happening to feel in the top pocket of his coat, he found therein eight
+cigars. Four of them were soaked with sea-water; four were perfectly
+scathless. After a search, somebody produced three dry matches, and
+thereupon the four waifs rode impudently in their little boat, and with
+an assurance of an impending rescue shining in their eyes, puffed at the
+big cigars and judged well and ill of all men. Everybody took a drink of
+water.
+
+
+IV
+
+"Cook," remarked the captain, "there don't seem to be any signs of life
+about your house of refuge."
+
+"No," replied the cook. "Funny they don't see us!"
+
+A broad stretch of lowly coast lay before the eyes of the men. It was of
+dunes topped with dark vegetation. The roar of the surf was plain, and
+sometimes they could see the white lip of a wave as it spun up the
+beach. A tiny house was blocked out black upon the sky. Southward, the
+slim lighthouse lifted its little grey length.
+
+Tide, wind, and waves were swinging the dingey northward. "Funny they
+don't see us," said the men.
+
+The surf's roar was here dulled, but its tone was, nevertheless,
+thunderous and mighty. As the boat swam over the great rollers, the men
+sat listening to this roar. "We'll swamp sure," said everybody.
+
+It is fair to say here that there was not a life-saving station within
+twenty miles in either direction, but the men did not know this fact,
+and in consequence they made dark and opprobrious remarks concerning the
+eyesight of the nation's life-savers. Four scowling men sat in the
+dingey and surpassed records in the invention of epithets.
+
+"Funny they don't see us."
+
+The lightheartedness of a former time had completely faded. To their
+sharpened minds it was easy to conjure pictures of all kinds of
+incompetency and blindness and, indeed, cowardice. There was the shore
+of the populous land, and it was bitter and bitter to them that from it
+came no sign.
+
+"Well," said the captain, ultimately, "I suppose we'll have to make a
+try for ourselves. If we stay out here too long, we'll none of us have
+strength left to swim after the boat swamps."
+
+And so the oiler, who was at the oars, turned the boat straight for the
+shore. There was a sudden tightening of muscle. There was some thinking.
+
+"If we don't all get ashore--" said the captain. "If we don't all get
+ashore, I suppose you fellows know where to send news of my finish?"
+
+They then briefly exchanged some addresses and admonitions. As for the
+reflections of the men, there was a great deal of rage in them.
+Perchance they might be formulated thus: "If I am going to be drowned--
+if I am going to be drowned--if I am going to be drowned, why, in the
+name of the seven mad gods who rule the sea, was I allowed to come thus
+far and contemplate sand and trees? Was I brought here merely to have my
+nose dragged away as I was about to nibble the sacred cheese of life? It
+is preposterous. If this old ninny-woman, Fate, cannot do better than
+this, she should be deprived of the management of men's fortunes. She is
+an old hen who knows not her intention. If she has decided to drown me,
+why did she not do it in the beginning and save me all this trouble? The
+whole affair is absurd.... But no, she cannot mean to drown me. She dare
+not drown me. She cannot drown me. Not after all this work." Afterward
+the man might have had an impulse to shake his fist at the clouds: "Just
+you drown me, now, and then hear what I call you!"
+
+The billows that came at this time were more formidable. They seemed
+always just about to break and roll over the little boat in a turmoil of
+foam. There was a preparatory and long growl in the speech of them. No
+mind unused to the sea would have concluded that the dingey could ascend
+these sheer heights in time. The shore was still afar. The oiler was a
+wily surfman. "Boys," he said swiftly, "she won't live three minutes
+more, and we're too far out to swim. Shall I take her to sea again,
+captain?"
+
+"Yes! Go ahead!" said the captain.
+
+This oiler, by a series of quick miracles, and fast and steady
+oarsmanship, turned the boat in the middle of the surf and took her
+safely to sea again.
+
+There was a considerable silence as the boat bumped over the furrowed
+sea to deeper water. Then somebody in gloom spoke. "Well, anyhow, they
+must have seen us from the shore by now."
+
+The gulls went in slanting flight up the wind toward the grey desolate
+east. A squall, marked by dingy clouds, and clouds brick-red, like smoke
+from a burning building, appeared from the south-east.
+
+"What do you think of those life-saving people? Ain't they peaches?'
+
+"Funny they haven't seen us."
+
+"Maybe they think we're out here for sport! Maybe they think we're
+fishin'. Maybe they think we're damned fools."
+
+It was a long afternoon. A changed tide tried to force them southward,
+but the wind and wave said northward. Far ahead, where coast-line, sea,
+and sky formed their mighty angle, there were little dots which seemed
+to indicate a city on the shore.
+
+"St. Augustine?"
+
+The captain shook his head. "Too near Mosquito Inlet."
+
+And the oiler rowed, and then the correspondent rowed. Then the oiler
+rowed. It was a weary business. The human back can become the seat of
+more aches and pains than are registered in books for the composite
+anatomy of a regiment. It is a limited area, but it can become the
+theatre of innumerable muscular conflicts, tangles, wrenches, knots, and
+other comforts.
+
+"Did you ever like to row, Billie?" asked the correspondent.
+
+"No," said the oiler. "Hang it!"
+
+When one exchanged the rowing-seat for a place in the bottom of the
+boat, he suffered a bodily depression that caused him to be careless of
+everything save an obligation to wiggle one finger. There was cold sea-
+water swashing to and fro in the boat, and he lay in it. His head,
+pillowed on a thwart, was within an inch of the swirl of a wave crest,
+and sometimes a particularly obstreperous sea came in-board and drenched
+him once more. But these matters did not annoy him. It is almost certain
+that if the boat had capsized he would have tumbled comfortably out upon
+the ocean as if he felt sure that it was a great soft mattress.
+
+"Look! There's a man on the shore!"
+
+"Where?"
+
+"There! See 'im? See 'im?"
+
+"Yes, sure! He's walking along."
+
+"Now he's stopped. Look! He's facing us!"
+
+"He's waving at us!"
+
+"So he is! By thunder!"
+
+"Ah, now we're all right! Now we're all right! There'll be a boat out
+here for us in half-an-hour."
+
+"He's going on. He's running. He's going up to that house there."
+
+The remote beach seemed lower than the sea, and it required a searching
+glance to discern the little black figure. The captain saw a floating
+stick and they rowed to it. A bath-towel was by some weird chance in the
+boat, and, tying this on the stick, the captain waved it. The oarsman
+did not dare turn his head, so he was obliged to ask questions.
+
+"What's he doing now?"
+
+"He's standing still again. He's looking, I think.... There he goes
+again. Toward the house.... Now he's stopped again."
+
+"Is he waving at us?"
+
+"No, not now! he was, though."
+
+"Look! There comes another man!"
+
+"He's running."
+
+"Look at him go, would you."
+
+"Why, he's on a bicycle. Now he's met the other man. They're both waving
+at us. Look!"
+
+"There comes something up the beach."
+
+"What the devil is that thing?"
+
+"Why it looks like a boat."
+
+"Why, certainly it's a boat."
+
+"No, it's on wheels."
+
+"Yes, so it is. Well, that must be the life-boat. They drag them along
+shore on a wagon."
+
+"That's the life-boat, sure."
+
+"No, by ----, it's--it's an omnibus."
+
+"I tell you it's a life-boat."
+
+"It is not! It's an omnibus. I can see it plain. See? One of these big
+hotel omnibuses."
+
+"By thunder, you're right. It's an omnibus, sure as fate. What do you
+suppose they are doing with an omnibus? Maybe they are going around
+collecting the life-crew, hey?"
+
+"That's it, likely. Look! There's a fellow waving a little black flag.
+He's standing on the steps of the omnibus. There come those other two
+fellows. Now they're all talking together. Look at the fellow with the
+flag. Maybe he ain't waving it."
+
+"That ain't a flag, is it? That's his coat. Why, certainly, that's his
+coat."
+
+"So it is. It's his coat. He's taken it off and is waving it around his
+head. But would you look at him swing it."
+
+"Oh, say, there isn't any life-saving station there. That's just a
+winter resort hotel omnibus that has brought over some of the boarders
+to see us drown."
+
+"What's that idiot with the coat mean? What's he signaling, anyhow?"
+
+"It looks as if he were trying to tell us to go north. There must be a
+life-saving station up there."
+
+"No! He thinks we're fishing. Just giving us a merry hand. See? Ah,
+there, Willie!"
+
+"Well, I wish I could make something out of those signals. What do you
+suppose he means?"
+
+"He don't mean anything. He's just playing."
+
+"Well, if he'd just signal us to try the surf again, or to go to sea and
+wait, or go north, or go south, or go to hell--there would be some
+reason in it. But look at him. He just stands there and keeps his coat
+revolving like a wheel. The ass!"
+
+"There come more people."
+
+"Now there's quite a mob. Look! Isn't that a boat?"
+
+"Where? Oh, I see where you mean. No, that's no boat."
+
+"That fellow is still waving his coat."
+
+"He must think we like to see him do that. Why don't he quit it? It
+don't mean anything."
+
+"I don't know. I think he is trying to make us go north. It must be that
+there's a life-saving station there somewhere."
+
+"Say, he ain't tired yet. Look at 'im wave."
+
+"Wonder how long he can keep that up. He's been revolving his coat ever
+since he caught sight of us. He's an idiot. Why aren't they getting men
+to bring a boat out? A fishing boat--one of those big yawls--could come
+out here all right. Why don't he do something?"
+
+"Oh, it's all right, now."
+
+"They'll have a boat out here for us in less than no time, now that
+they've seen us."
+
+A faint yellow tone came into the sky over the low land. The shadows on
+the sea slowly deepened. The wind bore coldness with it, and the men
+began to shiver.
+
+"Holy smoke!" said one, allowing his voice to express his impious mood,
+"if we keep on monkeying out here! If we've got to flounder out here all
+night!"
+
+"Oh, we'll never have to stay here all night! Don't you worry. They've
+seen us now, and it won't be long before they'll come chasing out after
+us."
+
+The shore grew dusky. The man waving a coat blended gradually into this
+gloom, and it swallowed in the same manner the omnibus and the group of
+people. The spray, when it dashed uproariously over the side, made the
+voyagers shrink and swear like men who were being branded.
+
+"I'd like to catch the chump who waved the coat. I feel like soaking him
+one, just for luck."
+
+"Why? What did he do?"
+
+"Oh, nothing, but then he seemed so damned cheerful."
+
+In the meantime the oiler rowed, and then the correspondent rowed, and
+then the oiler rowed. Grey-faced and bowed forward, they mechanically,
+turn by turn, plied the leaden oars. The form of the lighthouse had
+vanished from the southern horizon, but finally a pale star appeared,
+just lifting from the sea. The streaked saffron in the west passed
+before the all-merging darkness, and the sea to the east was black. The
+land had vanished, and was expressed only by the low and drear thunder
+of the surf.
+
+"If I am going to be drowned--if I am going to be drowned--if I am going
+to be drowned, why, in the name of the seven mad gods who rule the sea,
+was I allowed to come thus far and contemplate sand and trees? Was I
+brought here merely to have my nose dragged away as I was about to
+nibble the sacred cheese of life?"
+
+The patient captain, drooped over the water-jar, was sometimes obliged
+to speak to the oarsman.
+
+"Keep her head up! Keep her head up!"
+
+"'Keep her head up,' sir." The voices were weary and low.
+
+This was surely a quiet evening. All save the oarsman lay heavily and
+listlessly in the boat's bottom. As for him, his eyes were just capable
+of noting the tall black waves that swept forward in a most sinister
+silence, save for an occasional subdued growl of a crest.
+
+The cook's head was on a thwart, and he looked without interest at the
+water under his nose. He was deep in other scenes. Finally he spoke.
+"Billie," he murmured, dreamfully, "what kind of pie do you like best?"
+
+
+V
+
+"Pie," said the oiler and the correspondent, agitatedly. "Don't talk
+about those things, blast you!"
+
+"Well," said the cook, "I was just thinking about ham sandwiches, and--"
+
+A night on the sea in an open boat is a long night. As darkness settled
+finally, the shine of the light, lifting from the sea in the south,
+changed to full gold. On the northern horizon a new light appeared, a
+small bluish gleam on the edge of the waters. These two lights were the
+furniture of the world. Otherwise there was nothing but waves.
+
+Two men huddled in the stern, and distances were so magnificent in the
+dingey that the rower was enabled to keep his feet partly warmed by
+thrusting them under his companions. Their legs indeed extended far
+under the rowing-seat until they touched the feet of the captain
+forward. Sometimes, despite the efforts of the tired oarsman, a wave
+came piling into the boat, an icy wave of the night, and the chilling
+water soaked them anew. They would twist their bodies for a moment and
+groan, and sleep the dead sleep once more, while the water in the boat
+gurgled about them as the craft rocked.
+
+The plan of the oiler and the correspondent was for one to row until he
+lost the ability, and then arouse the other from his sea-water couch in
+the bottom of the boat.
+
+The oiler plied the oars until his head drooped forward, and the
+overpowering sleep blinded him. And he rowed yet afterward. Then he
+touched a man in the bottom of the boat, and called his name. "Will you
+spell me for a little while?" he said, meekly.
+
+"Sure, Billie," said the correspondent, awakening and dragging himself
+to a sitting position. They exchanged places carefully, and the oiler,
+cuddling down in the sea-water at the cook's side, seemed to go to sleep
+instantly.
+
+The particular violence of the sea had ceased. The waves came without
+snarling. The obligation of the man at the oars was to keep the boat
+headed so that the tilt of the rollers would not capsize her, and to
+preserve her from filling when the crests rushed past. The black waves
+were silent and hard to be seen in the darkness. Often one was almost
+upon the boat before the oarsman was aware.
+
+In a low voice the correspondent addressed the captain. He was not sure
+that the captain was awake, although this iron man seemed to be always
+awake. "Captain, shall I keep her making for that light north, sir?"
+
+The same steady voice answered him. "Yes. Keep it about two points off
+the port bow."
+
+The cook had tied a life-belt around himself in order to get even the
+warmth which this clumsy cork contrivance could donate, and he seemed
+almost stove-like when a rower, whose teeth invariably chattered wildly
+as soon as he ceased his labor, dropped down to sleep.
+
+The correspondent, as he rowed, looked down at the two men sleeping
+under-foot. The cook's arm was around the oiler's shoulders, and, with
+their fragmentary clothing and haggard faces, they were the babes of the
+sea, a grotesque rendering of the old babes in the wood.
+
+Later he must have grown stupid at his work, for suddenly there was a
+growling of water, and a crest came with a roar and a swash into the
+boat, and it was a wonder that it did not set the cook afloat in his
+life-belt. The cook continued to sleep, but the oiler sat up, blinking
+his eyes and shaking with the new cold.
+
+"Oh, I'm awful sorry, Billie," said the correspondent contritely.
+
+"That's all right, old boy," said the oiler, and lay down again and was
+asleep.
+
+Presently it seemed that even the captain dozed, and the correspondent
+thought that he was the one man afloat on all the oceans. The wind had a
+voice as it came over the waves, and it was sadder than the end.
+
+There was a long, loud swishing astern of the boat, and a gleaming trail
+of phosphorescence, like blue flame, was furrowed on the black waters.
+It might have been made by a monstrous knife.
+
+Then there came a stillness, while the correspondent breathed with the
+open mouth and looked at the sea.
+
+Suddenly there was another swish and another long flash of bluish light,
+and this time it was alongside the boat, and might almost have been
+reached with an oar. The correspondent saw an enormous fin speed like a
+shadow through the water, hurling the crystalline spray and leaving the
+long glowing trail.
+
+The correspondent looked over his shoulder at the captain. His face was
+hidden, and he seemed to be asleep. He looked at the babes of the sea.
+They certainly were asleep. So, being bereft of sympathy, he leaned a
+little way to one side and swore softly into the sea.
+
+But the thing did not then leave the vicinity of the boat. Ahead or
+astern, on one side or the other, at intervals long or short, fled the
+long sparkling streak, and there was to be heard the whirroo of the dark
+fin. The speed and power of the thing was greatly to be admired. It cut
+the water like a gigantic and keen projectile.
+
+The presence of this biding thing did not affect the man with the same
+horror that it would if he had been a picnicker. He simply looked at the
+sea dully and swore in an undertone.
+
+Nevertheless, it is true that he did not wish to be alone. He wished one
+of his companions to awaken by chance and keep him company with it. But
+the captain hung motionless over the water-jar, and the oiler and the
+cook in the bottom of the boat were plunged in slumber.
+
+
+VI
+
+"If I am going to be drowned--if I am going to be drowned--if I am going
+to be drowned, why, in the name of the seven mad gods who rule the sea,
+was I allowed to come thus far and contemplate sand and trees?"
+
+During this dismal night, it may be remarked that a man would conclude
+that it was really the intention of the seven mad gods to drown him,
+despite the abominable injustice of it. For it was certainly an
+abominable injustice to drown a man who had worked so hard, so hard. The
+man felt it would be a crime most unnatural. Other people had drowned at
+sea since galleys swarmed with painted sails, but still--
+
+When it occurs to a man that nature does not regard him as important,
+and that she feels she would not maim the universe by disposing of him,
+he at first wishes to throw bricks at the temple, and he hates deeply
+the fact that there are no brick and no temples. Any visible expression
+of nature would surely be pelleted with his jeers.
+
+Then, if there be no tangible thing to hoot he feels, perhaps, the
+desire to confront a personification and indulge in pleas, bowed to one
+knee, and with hands supplicant, saying: "Yes, but I love myself."
+
+A high cold star on a winter's night is the word he feels that she says
+to him. Thereafter he knows the pathos of his situation.
+
+The men in the dingey had not discussed these matters, but each had, no
+doubt, reflected upon them in silence and according to his mind. There
+was seldom any expression upon their faces save the general one of
+complete weariness. Speech was devoted to the business of the boat.
+
+To chime the notes of his emotion, a verse mysteriously entered the
+correspondent's head. He had even forgotten that he had forgotten this
+verse, but it suddenly was in his mind.
+
+  "A soldier of the Legion lay dying in Algiers,
+   There was a lack of woman's nursing, there was dearth of
+     woman's tears;
+   But a comrade stood beside him, and he took that comrade's hand,
+   And he said: 'I shall never see my own, my native land.'"
+
+In his childhood, the correspondent had been made acquainted with the
+fact that a soldier of the Legion lay dying in Algiers, but he had never
+regarded the fact as important. Myriads of his school-fellows had
+informed him of the soldier's plight, but the dinning had naturally
+ended by making him perfectly indifferent. He had never considered it
+his affair that a soldier of the Legion lay dying in Algiers, nor had it
+appeared to him as a matter for sorrow. It was less to him than the
+breaking of a pencil's point.
+
+Now, however, it quaintly came to him as a human, living thing. It was
+no longer merely a picture of a few throes in the breast of a poet,
+meanwhile drinking tea and warming his feet at the grate; it was an
+actuality--stern, mournful, and fine.
+
+The correspondent plainly saw the soldier. He lay on the sand with his
+feet out straight and still. While his pale left hand was upon his chest
+in an attempt to thwart the going of his life, the blood came between
+his fingers. In the far Algerian distance, a city of low square forms
+was set against a sky that was faint with the last sunset hues. The
+correspondent, plying the oars and dreaming of the slow and slower
+movements of the lips of the soldier, was moved by a profound and
+perfectly impersonal comprehension. He was sorry for the soldier of the
+Legion who lay dying in Algiers.
+
+The thing which had followed the boat and waited, had evidently grown
+bored at the delay. There was no longer to be heard the slash of the
+cut-water, and there was no longer the flame of the long trail. The
+light in the north still glimmered, but it was apparently no nearer to
+the boat. Sometimes the boom of the surf rang in the correspondent's
+ears, and he turned the craft seaward then and rowed harder. Southward,
+some one had evidently built a watch-fire on the beach. It was too low
+and too far to be seen, but it made a shimmering, roseate reflection
+upon the bluff back of it, and this could be discerned from the boat.
+The wind came stronger, and sometimes a wave suddenly raged out like a
+mountain-cat, and there was to be seen the sheen and sparkle of a broken
+crest.
+
+The captain, in the bow, moved on his water-jar and sat erect. "Pretty
+long night," he observed to the correspondent. He looked at the shore.
+"Those life-saving people take their time."
+
+"Did you see that shark playing around?"
+
+"Yes, I saw him. He was a big fellow, all right."
+
+"Wish I had known you were awake."
+
+Later the correspondent spoke into the bottom of the boat.
+
+"Billie!" There was a slow and gradual disentanglement. "Billie, will
+you spell me?"
+
+"Sure," said the oiler.
+
+As soon as the correspondent touched the cold comfortable sea-water in
+the bottom of the boat, and had huddled close to the cook's life-belt he
+was deep in sleep, despite the fact that his teeth played all the
+popular airs. This sleep was so good to him that it was but a moment
+before he heard a voice call his name in a tone that demonstrated the
+last stages of exhaustion. "Will you spell me?"
+
+"Sure, Billie."
+
+The light in the north had mysteriously vanished, but the correspondent
+took his course from the wide-awake captain.
+
+Later in the night they took the boat farther out to sea, and the
+captain directed the cook to take one oar at the stern and keep the boat
+facing the seas. He was to call out if he should hear the thunder of the
+surf. This plan enabled the oiler and the correspondent to get respite
+together. "We'll give those boys a chance to get into shape again," said
+the captain. They curled down and, after a few preliminary chatterings
+and trembles, slept once more the dead sleep. Neither knew they had
+bequeathed to the cook the company of another shark, or perhaps the same
+shark.
+
+As the boat caroused on the waves, spray occasionally bumped over the
+side and gave them a fresh soaking, but this had no power to break their
+repose. The ominous slash of the wind and the water affected them as it
+would have affected mummies.
+
+"Boys," said the cook, with the notes of every reluctance in his voice,
+"she's drifted in pretty close. I guess one of you had better take her
+to sea again." The correspondent, aroused, heard the crash of the
+toppled crests.
+
+As he was rowing, the captain gave him some whisky-and-water, and this
+steadied the chills out of him. "If I ever get ashore and anybody shows
+me even a photograph of an oar--"
+
+At last there was a short conversation.
+
+"Billie.... Billie, will you spell me?"
+
+"Sure," said the oiler.
+
+
+VII
+
+When the correspondent again opened his eyes, the sea and the sky were
+each of the grey hue of the dawning. Later, carmine and gold was painted
+upon the waters. The morning appeared finally, in its splendor, with a
+sky of pure blue, and the sunlight flamed on the tips of the waves.
+
+On the distant dunes were set many little black cottages, and a tall
+white windmill reared above them. No man, nor dog, nor bicycle appeared
+on the beach. The cottages might have formed a deserted village.
+
+The voyagers scanned the shore. A conference was held in the boat.
+"Well," said the captain, "if no help is coming we might better try a
+run through the surf right away. If we stay out here much longer we will
+be too weak to do anything for ourselves at all." The others silently
+acquiesced in this reasoning. The boat was headed for the beach. The
+correspondent wondered if none ever ascended the tall wind-tower, and if
+then they never looked seaward. This tower was a giant, standing with
+its back to the plight of the ants. It represented in a degree, to the
+correspondent, the serenity of nature amid the struggles of the
+individual--nature in the wind, and nature in the vision of men. She did
+not seem cruel to him then, nor beneficent, nor treacherous, nor wise.
+But she was indifferent, flatly indifferent. It is, perhaps, plausible
+that a man in this situation, impressed with the unconcern of the
+universe, should see the innumerable flaws of his life, and have them
+taste wickedly in his mind and wish for another chance. A distinction
+between right and wrong seems absurdly clear to him, then, in this new
+ignorance of the grave-edge, and he understands that if he were given
+another opportunity he would mend his conduct and his words, and be
+better and brighter during an introduction or at a tea.
+
+"Now, boys," said the captain, "she is going to swamp, sure. All we can
+do is to work her in as far as possible, and then when she swamps, pile
+out and scramble for the beach. Keep cool now, and don't jump until she
+swamps sure."
+
+The oiler took the oars. Over his shoulders he scanned the surf.
+"Captain," he said, "I think I'd better bring her about, and keep her
+head-on to the seas and back her in."
+
+"All right, Billie," said the captain. "Back her in." The oiler swung
+the boat then and, seated in the stern, the cook and the correspondent
+were obliged to look over their shoulders to contemplate the lonely and
+indifferent shore.
+
+The monstrous in-shore rollers heaved the boat high until the men were
+again enabled to see the white sheets of water scudding up the slanted
+beach. "We won't get in very close," said the captain. Each time a man
+could wrest his attention from the rollers, he turned his glance toward
+the shore, and in the expression of the eyes during this contemplation
+there was a singular quality. The correspondent, observing the others,
+knew that they were not afraid, but the full meaning of their glances
+was shrouded.
+
+As for himself, he was too tired to grapple fundamentally with the fact.
+He tried to coerce his mind into thinking of it, but the mind was
+dominated at this time by the muscles, and the muscles said they did not
+care. It merely occurred to him that if he should drown it would be a
+shame.
+
+There were no hurried words, no pallor, no plain agitation. The men
+simply looked at the shore. "Now, remember to get well clear of the boat
+when you jump," said the captain.
+
+Seaward the crest of a roller suddenly fell with a thunderous crash, and
+the long white comber came roaring down upon the boat.
+
+"Steady now," said the captain. The men were silent. They turned their
+eyes from the shore to the comber and waited. The boat slid up the
+incline, leaped at the furious top, bounced over it, and swung down the
+long back of the wave. Some water had been shipped and the cook bailed
+it out.
+
+But the next crest crashed also. The tumbling, boiling flood of white
+water caught the boat and whirled it almost perpendicular. Water swarmed
+in from all sides. The correspondent had his hands on the gunwale at
+this time, and when the water entered at that place he swiftly withdrew
+his fingers, as if he objected to wetting them.
+
+The little boat, drunken with this weight of water, reeled and snuggled
+deeper into the sea.
+
+"Bail her out, cook! Bail her out," said the captain.
+
+"All right, captain," said the cook.
+
+"Now, boys, the next one will do for us, sure," said the oiler. "Mind to
+jump clear of the boat."
+
+The third wave moved forward, huge, furious, implacable. It fairly
+swallowed the dingey, and almost simultaneously the men tumbled into the
+sea. A piece of lifebelt had lain in the bottom of the boat, and as the
+correspondent went overboard he held this to his chest with his left
+hand.
+
+The January water was icy, and he reflected immediately that it was
+colder than he had expected to find it on the coast of Florida. This
+appeared to his dazed mind as a fact important enough to be noted at the
+time. The coldness of the water was sad; it was tragic. This fact was
+somehow so mixed and confused with his opinion of his own situation that
+it seemed almost a proper reason for tears. The water was cold.
+
+When he came to the surface he was conscious of little but the noisy
+water. Afterward he saw his companions in the sea. The oiler was ahead
+in the race. He was swimming strongly and rapidly. Off to the
+correspondent's left, the cook's great white and corked back bulged out
+of the water, and in the rear the captain was hanging with his one good
+hand to the keel of the overturned dingey.
+
+There is a certain immovable quality to a shore, and the correspondent
+wondered at it amid the confusion of the sea.
+
+It seemed also very attractive, but the correspondent knew that it was a
+long journey, and he paddled leisurely. The piece of life-preserver lay
+under him, and sometimes he whirled down the incline of a wave as if he
+were on a handsled.
+
+But finally he arrived at a place in the sea where travel was beset
+with difficulty. He did not pause swimming to inquire what manner of
+current had caught him, but there his progress ceased. The shore was set
+before him like a bit of scenery on a stage, and he looked at it and
+understood with his eyes each detail of it.
+
+As the cook passed, much farther to the left, the captain was calling to
+him, "Turn over on your back, cook! Turn over on your back and use the
+oar."
+
+"All right, sir." The cook turned on his back, and, paddling with an
+oar, went ahead as if he were a canoe.
+
+Presently the boat also passed to the left of the correspondent with the
+captain clinging with one hand to the keel. He would have appeared like
+a man raising himself to look over a board fence, if it were not for the
+extraordinary gymnastics of the boat. The correspondent marvelled that
+the captain could still hold to it.
+
+They passed on, nearer to shore--the oiler, the cook, the captain--and
+following them went the water-jar, bouncing gaily over the seas.
+
+The correspondent remained in the grip of this strange new enemy--a
+current. The shore, with its white slope of sand and its green bluff,
+topped with little silent cottages, was spread like a picture before
+him. It was very near to him then, but he was impressed as one who in a
+gallery looks at a scene from Brittany or Holland.
+
+He thought: "I am going to drown? Can it be possible Can it be possible?
+Can it be possible?" Perhaps an individual must consider his own death
+to be the final phenomenon of nature.
+
+But later a wave perhaps whirled him out of this small, deadly current,
+for he found suddenly that he could again make progress toward the
+shore. Later still, he was aware that the captain, clinging with one
+hand to the keel of the dingey, had his face turned away from the shore
+and toward him, and was calling his name. "Come to the boat! Come to the
+boat!"
+
+In his struggle to reach the captain and the boat, he reflected that
+when one gets properly wearied, drowning must really be a comfortable
+arrangement, a cessation of hostilities accompanied by a large degree of
+relief, and he was glad of it, for the main thing in his mind for some
+months had been horror of the temporary agony. He did not wish to be
+hurt.
+
+Presently he saw a man running along the shore. He was undressing with
+most remarkable speed. Coat, trousers, shirt, everything flew magically
+off him.
+
+"Come to the boat," called the captain.
+
+"All right, captain." As the correspondent paddled, he saw the captain
+let himself down to bottom and leave the boat. Then the correspondent
+performed his one little marvel of the voyage. A large wave caught him
+and flung him with ease and supreme speed completely over the boat and
+far beyond it. It struck him even then as an event in gymnastics, and a
+true miracle of the sea. An over-turned boat in the surf is not a
+plaything to a swimming man.
+
+The correspondent arrived in water that reached only to his waist, but
+his condition did not enable him to stand for more than a moment. Each
+wave knocked him into a heap, and the under-tow pulled at him.
+
+Then he saw the man who had been running and undressing, and undressing
+and running, come bounding into the water. He dragged ashore the cook,
+and then waded towards the captain, but the captain waved him away, and
+sent him to the correspondent. He was naked, naked as a tree in winter,
+but a halo was about his head, and he shone like a saint. He gave a
+strong pull, and a long drag, and a bully heave at the correspondent's
+hand. The correspondent, schooled in the minor formulae, said: "Thanks,
+old man." But suddenly the man cried: "What's that?" He pointed a swift
+finger. The correspondent said: "Go."
+
+In the shallows, face downward, lay the oiler. His forehead touched sand
+that was periodically, between each wave, clear of the sea.
+
+The correspondent did not know all that transpired afterward. When he
+achieved safe ground he fell, striking the sand with each particular
+part of his body. It was as if he had dropped from a roof, but the thud
+was grateful to him.
+
+It seems that instantly the beach was populated with men with blankets,
+clothes, and flasks, and women with coffeepots and all the remedies
+sacred to their minds. The welcome of the land to the men from the sea
+was warm and generous, but a still and dripping shape was carried slowly
+up the beach, and the land's welcome for it could only be the different
+and sinister hospitality of the grave.
+
+When it came night, the white waves paced to and fro in the moonlight,
+and the wind brought the sound of the great sea's voice to the men on
+shore, and they felt that they could then be interpreters.
+
+
+
+
+THE RELUCTANT VOYAGERS
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+Two men sat by the sea waves.
+
+"Well, I know I'm not handsome," said one gloomily. He was poking holes
+in the sand with a discontented cane.
+
+The companion was watching the waves play. He seemed overcome with
+perspiring discomfort as a man who is resolved to set another man right.
+
+Suddenly his mouth turned into a straight line.
+
+"To be sure you are not," he cried vehemently.
+
+"You look like thunder. I do not desire to be unpleasant, but I must
+assure you that your freckled skin continually reminds spectators of
+white wall paper with gilt roses on it. The top of your head looks like
+a little wooden plate. And your figure--heavens!"
+
+For a time they were silent. They stared at the waves that purred near
+their feet like sleepy sea-kittens.
+
+Finally the first man spoke.
+
+"Well," said he, defiantly, "what of it?"
+
+"What of it?" exploded the other. "Why, it means that you'd look like
+blazes in a bathing-suit."
+
+They were again silent. The freckled man seemed ashamed. His tall
+companion glowered at the scenery.
+
+"I am decided," said the freckled man suddenly. He got boldly up from the
+sand and strode away. The tall man followed, walking sarcastically and
+glaring down at the round, resolute figure before him.
+
+A bath-clerk was looking at the world with superior eyes through a hole
+in a board. To him the freckled man made application, waving his hands
+over his person in illustration of a snug fit. The bath-clerk thought
+profoundly. Eventually, he handed out a blue bundle with an air of
+having phenomenally solved the freckled man's dimensions.
+
+The latter resumed his resolute stride.
+
+"See here," said the tall man, following him, "I bet you've got a
+regular toga, you know. That fellow couldn't tell--"
+
+"Yes, he could," interrupted the freckled man, "I saw correct
+mathematics in his eyes."
+
+"Well, supposin' he has missed your size. Supposin'--"
+
+"Tom," again interrupted the other, "produce your proud clothes and
+we'll go in."
+
+The tall man swore bitterly. He went to one of a row of little wooden
+boxes and shut himself in it. His companion repaired to a similar box.
+
+At first he felt like an opulent monk in a too-small cell, and he turned
+round two or three times to see if he could. He arrived finally into his
+bathing-dress. Immediately he dropped gasping upon a three-cornered
+bench. The suit fell in folds about his reclining form. There was
+silence, save for the caressing calls of the waves without.
+
+Then he heard two shoes drop on the floor in one of the little coops. He
+began to clamor at the boards like a penitent at an unforgiving door.
+
+"Tom," called he, "Tom--"
+
+A voice of wrath, muffled by cloth, came through the walls. "You go t'
+blazes!"
+
+The freckled man began to groan, taking the occupants of the entire row
+of coops into his confidence.
+
+"Stop your noise," angrily cried the tall man from his hidden den. "You
+rented the bathing-suit, didn't you? Then--"
+
+"It ain't a bathing-suit," shouted the freckled man at the boards. "It's
+an auditorium, a ballroom, or something. It isn't a bathing-suit."
+
+The tall man came out of his box. His suit looked like blue skin. He
+walked with grandeur down the alley between the rows of coops. Stopping
+in front of his friend's door, he rapped on it with passionate knuckles.
+
+"Come out of there, y' ol' fool," said he, in an enraged whisper. "It's
+only your accursed vanity. Wear it anyhow. What difference does it make?
+I never saw such a vain ol' idiot!"
+
+As he was storming the door opened, and his friend confronted him. The
+tall man's legs gave way, and he fell against the opposite door.
+
+The freckled man regarded him sternly.
+
+"You're an ass," he said.
+
+His back curved in scorn. He walked majestically down the alley. There
+was pride in the way his chubby feet patted the boards. The tall man
+followed, weakly, his eyes riveted upon the figure ahead.
+
+As a disguise the freckled man had adopted the stomach of importance. He
+moved with an air of some sort of procession, across a board walk, down
+some steps, and out upon the sand.
+
+There was a pug dog and three old women on a bench, a man and a maid
+with a book and a parasol, a seagull drifting high in the wind, and a
+distant, tremendous meeting of sea and sky. Down on the wet sand stood a
+girl being wooed by the breakers.
+
+The freckled man moved with stately tread along the beach. The tall man,
+numb with amazement, came in the rear. They neared the girl.
+
+Suddenly the tall man was seized with convulsions. He laughed, and the
+girl turned her head.
+
+She perceived the freckled man in the bathing-suit. An expression of
+wonderment overspread her charming face. It changed in a moment to a
+pearly smile.
+
+This smile seemed to smite the freckled man. He obviously tried to swell
+and fit his suit. Then he turned a shrivelling glance upon his
+companion, and fled up the beach. The tall man ran after him, pursuing
+with mocking cries that tingled his flesh like stings of insects. He
+seemed to be trying to lead the way out of the world. But at last he
+stopped and faced about.
+
+"Tom Sharp," said he, between his clenched teeth, "you are an
+unutterable wretch! I could grind your bones under my heel."
+
+The tall man was in a trance, with glazed eyes fixed on the bathing-
+dress. He seemed to be murmuring: "Oh, good Lord! Oh, good Lord! I never
+saw such a suit!"
+
+The freckled man made the gesture of an assassin.
+
+"Tom Sharp, you--"
+
+The other was still murmuring: "Oh, good Lord! I never saw such a suit!
+I never--"
+
+The freckled man ran down into the sea.
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+The cool, swirling waters took his temper from him, and it became a
+thing that is lost in the ocean. The tall man floundered in, and the two
+forgot and rollicked in the waves.
+
+The freckled man, in endeavoring to escape from mankind, had left all
+save a solitary fisherman under a large hat, and three boys in bathing-
+dress, laughing and splashing upon a raft made of old spars.
+
+The two men swam softly over the ground swells.
+
+The three boys dived from their raft, and turned their jolly faces
+shorewards. It twisted slowly around and around, and began to move
+seaward on some unknown voyage. The freckled man laid his face to the
+water and swam toward the raft with a practised stroke. The tall man
+followed, his bended arm appearing and disappearing with the precision
+of machinery.
+
+The craft crept away, slowly and wearily, as if luring. The little
+wooden plate on the freckled man's head looked at the shore like a
+round, brown eye, but his gaze was fixed on the raft that slyly appeared
+to be waiting. The tall man used the little wooden plate as a beacon.
+
+At length the freckled man reached the raft and climbed aboard. He lay
+down on his back and puffed. His bathing-dress spread about him like a
+dead balloon. The tall man came, snorted, shook his tangled locks and
+lay down by the side of his companion.
+
+They were overcome with a delicious drowsiness. The planks of the raft
+seemed to fit their tired limbs. They gazed dreamily up into the vast
+sky of summer.
+
+"This is great," said the tall man. His companion grunted blissfully.
+
+Gentle hands from the sea rocked their craft and lulled them to peace.
+Lapping waves sang little rippling sea-songs about them. The two men
+issued contented groans.
+
+"Tom," said the freckled man.
+
+"What?" said the other.
+
+"This is great."
+
+They lay and thought.
+
+A fish-hawk, soaring, suddenly, turned and darted at the waves. The tall
+man indolently twisted his head and watched the bird plunge its claws
+into the water. It heavily arose with a silver gleaming fish.
+
+"That bird has got his feet wet again. It's a shame," murmured the tall
+man sleepily. "He must suffer from an endless cold in the head. He
+should wear rubber boots. They'd look great, too. If I was him, I'd--
+Great Scott!"
+
+He had partly arisen, and was looking at the shore.
+
+He began to scream. "Ted! Ted! Ted! Look!"
+
+"What's matter?" dreamily spoke the freckled man. "You remind me of when
+I put the bird-shot in your leg." He giggled softly.
+
+The agitated tall man made a gesture of supreme eloquence. His companion
+up-reared and turned a startled gaze shoreward.
+
+"Lord!" he roared, as if stabbed.
+
+The land was a long, brown streak with a rim of green, in which sparkled
+the tin roofs of huge hotels. The hands from the sea had pushed them
+away. The two men sprang erect, and did a little dance of perturbation.
+
+"What shall we do? What shall we do?" moaned the freckled man, wriggling
+fantastically in his dead balloon.
+
+The changing shore seemed to fascinate the tall man, and for a time he
+did not speak.
+
+Suddenly he concluded his minuet of horror. He wheeled about and faced
+the freckled man. He elaborately folded his arms.
+
+"So," he said, in slow, formidable tones. "So! This all comes from your
+accursed vanity, your bathing-suit, your idiocy; you have murdered your
+best friend."
+
+He turned away. His companion reeled as if stricken by an unexpected
+arm.
+
+He stretched out his hands. "Tom, Tom," wailed he, beseechingly, "don't
+be such a fool."
+
+The broad back of his friend was occupied by a contemptuous sneer.
+
+Three ships fell off the horizon. Landward, the hues were blending. The
+whistle of a locomotive sounded from an infinite distance as if tooting
+in heaven.
+
+"Tom! Tom! My dear boy," quavered the freckled man, "don't speak that
+way to me."
+
+"Oh, no, of course not," said the other, still facing away and throwing
+the words over his shoulder. "You suppose I am going to accept all this
+calmly, don't you? Not make the slightest objection? Make no protest at
+all, hey?"
+
+"Well, I--I----" began the freckled man.
+
+The tall man's wrath suddenly exploded. "You've abducted me! That's the
+whole amount of it! You've abducted me!"
+
+"I ain't," protested the freckled man. "You must think I'm a fool."
+
+The tall man swore, and sitting down, dangled his legs angrily in the
+water. Natural law compelled his companion to occupy the other end of
+the raft.
+
+Over the waters little shoals of fish spluttered, raising tiny tempests.
+Languid jelly-fish floated near, tremulously waving a thousand legs. A
+row of porpoises trundled along like a procession of cog-wheels. The sky
+became greyed save where over the land sunset colors were assembling.
+
+The two voyagers, back to back and at either end of the raft, quarrelled
+at length.
+
+"What did you want to follow me for?" demanded the freckled man in a
+voice of indignation.
+
+"If your figure hadn't been so like a bottle, we wouldn't be here,"
+replied the tall man.
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+The fires in the west blazed away, and solemnity spread over the sea.
+Electric lights began to blink like eyes. Night menaced the voyagers
+with a dangerous darkness, and fear came to bind their souls together.
+They huddled fraternally in the middle of the raft.
+
+"I feel like a molecule," said the freckled man in subdued tones.
+
+"I'd give two dollars for a cigar," muttered the tall man.
+
+A V-shaped flock of ducks flew towards Barnegat, between the voyagers
+and a remnant of yellow sky. Shadows and winds came from the vanished
+eastern horizon.
+
+"I think I hear voices," said the freckled man.
+
+"That Dollie Ramsdell was an awfully nice girl," said the tall man.
+
+When the coldness of the sea night came to them, the freckled man found
+he could by a peculiar movement of his legs and arms encase himself in
+his bathing-dress. The tall man was compelled to whistle and shiver. As
+night settled finally over the sea, red and green lights began to dot
+the blackness. There were mysterious shadows between the waves.
+
+"I see things comin'," murmured the freckled man.
+
+"I wish I hadn't ordered that new dress-suit for the hop to-morrow
+night," said the tall man reflectively.
+
+The sea became uneasy and heaved painfully, like a lost bosom, when
+little forgotten heart-bells try to chime with a pure sound. The
+voyagers cringed at magnified foam on distant wave crests. A moon came
+and looked at them.
+
+"Somebody's here," whispered the freckled man.
+
+"I wish I had an almanac," remarked the tall man, regarding the moon.
+
+Presently they fell to staring at the red and green lights that twinkled
+about them.
+
+"Providence will not leave us," asserted the freckled man.
+
+"Oh, we'll be picked up shortly. I owe money," said the tall man.
+
+He began to thrum on an imaginary banjo.
+
+"I have heard," said he, suddenly, "that captains with healthy ships
+beneath their feet will never turn back after having once started on a
+voyage. In that case we will be rescued by some ship bound for the
+golden seas of the south. Then, you'll be up to some of your confounded
+devilment and we'll get put off. They'll maroon us! That's what they'll
+do! They'll maroon us! On an island with palm trees and sun-kissed
+maidens and all that. Sun-kissed maidens, eh? Great! They'd--"
+
+He suddenly ceased and turned to stone. At a distance a great, green eye
+was contemplating the sea wanderers.
+
+They stood up and did another dance. As they watched the eye grew
+larger.
+
+Directly the form of a phantom-like ship came into view. About the
+great, green eye there bobbed small yellow dots. The wanderers could
+hear a far-away creaking of unseen tackle and flapping of shadowy sails.
+There came the melody of the waters as the ship's prow thrust its way.
+
+The tall man delivered an oration.
+
+"Ha!" he exclaimed, "here come our rescuers. The brave fellows! How I
+long to take the manly captain by the hand! You will soon see a white
+boat with a star on its bow drop from the side of yon ship. Kind sailors
+in blue and white will help us into the boat and conduct our wasted
+frames to the quarter-deck, where the handsome, bearded captain, with
+gold bands all around, will welcome us. Then in the hard-oak cabin,
+while the wine gurgles and the Havanas glow, we'll tell our tale of
+peril and privation."
+
+The ship came on like a black hurrying animal with froth-filled maw. The
+two wanderers stood up and clasped hands. Then they howled out a wild
+duet that rang over the wastes of sea.
+
+The cries seemed to strike the ship.
+
+Men with boots on yelled and ran about the deck. They picked up heavy
+articles and threw them down. They yelled more. After hideous creakings
+and flappings, the vessel stood still.
+
+In the meantime the wanderers had been chanting their song for help. Out
+in the blackness they beckoned to the ship and coaxed.
+
+A voice came to them.
+
+"Hello," it said.
+
+They puffed out their cheeks and began to shout. "Hello! Hello! Hello!"
+
+"Wot do yeh want?" said the voice.
+
+The two wanderers gazed at each other, and sat suddenly down on the
+raft. Some pall came sweeping over the sky and quenched their stars.
+
+But almost the tall man got up and brawled miscellaneous information. He
+stamped his foot, and frowning into the night, swore threateningly.
+
+The vessel seemed fearful of these moaning voices that called from a
+hidden cavern of the water. And now one voice was filled with a menace.
+A number of men with enormous limbs that threw vast shadows over the sea
+as the lanterns flickered, held a debate and made gestures.
+
+Off in the darkness, the tall man began to clamor like a mob. The
+freckled man sat in astounded silence, with his legs weak.
+
+After a time one of the men of enormous limbs seized a rope that was
+tugging at the stem and drew a small boat from the shadows. Three giants
+clambered in and rowed cautiously toward the raft. Silver water flashed
+in the gloom as the oars dipped.
+
+About fifty feet from the raft the boat stopped. "Who er you?" asked a
+voice.
+
+The tall man braced himself and explained. He drew vivid pictures, his
+twirling fingers illustrating like live brushes.
+
+"Oh," said the three giants.
+
+The voyagers deserted the raft. They looked back, feeling in their
+hearts a mite of tenderness for the wet planks. Later, they wriggled up
+the side of the vessel and climbed over the railing.
+
+On deck they met a man.
+
+He held a lantern to their faces. "Got any chewin' tewbacca?" he
+inquired.
+
+"No," said the tall man, "we ain't."
+
+The man had a bronze face and solitary whiskers. Peculiar lines about
+his mouth were shaped into an eternal smile of derision. His feet were
+bare, and clung handily to crevices.
+
+Fearful trousers were supported by a piece of suspender that went up the
+wrong side of his chest and came down the right side of his back,
+dividing him into triangles.
+
+"Ezekiel P. Sanford, capt'in, schooner 'Mary Jones,' of N'yack, N. Y.,
+genelmen," he said.
+
+"Ah!" said the tall man, "delighted, I'm sure."
+
+There were a few moments of silence. The giants were hovering in the
+gloom and staring.
+
+Suddenly astonishment exploded the captain.
+
+"Wot th' devil----" he shouted. "Wot th' devil yeh got on?"
+
+"Bathing-suits," said the tall man.
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+The schooner went on. The two voyagers sat down and watched. After a
+time they began to shiver. The soft blackness of the summer night passed
+away, and grey mists writhed over the sea. Soon lights of early dawn
+went changing across the sky, and the twin beacons on the highlands grew
+dim and sparkling faintly, as if a monster were dying. The dawn
+penetrated the marrow of the two men in bathing-dress.
+
+The captain used to pause opposite them, hitch one hand in his
+suspender, and laugh.
+
+"Well, I be dog-hanged," he frequently said.
+
+The tall man grew furious. He snarled in a mad undertone to his
+companion. "This rescue ain't right. If I had known--"
+
+He suddenly paused, transfixed by the captain's suspender. "It's goin'
+to break," cried he, in an ecstatic whisper. His eyes grew large with
+excitement as he watched the captain laugh. "It'll break in a minute,
+sure."
+
+But the commander of the schooner recovered, and invited them to drink
+and eat. They followed him along the deck, and fell down a square black
+hole into the cabin.
+
+It was a little den, with walls of a vanished whiteness. A lamp shed an
+orange light. In a sort of recess two little beds were hiding. A wooden
+table, immovable, as if the craft had been builded around it, sat in the
+middle of the floor. Overhead the square hole was studded with a dozen
+stars. A foot-worn ladder led to the heavens.
+
+The captain produced ponderous crackers and some cold broiled ham. Then
+he vanished in the firmament like a fantastic comet.
+
+The freckled man sat quite contentedly like a stout squaw in a blanket.
+The tall man walked about the cabin and sniffed. He was angered at the
+crudeness of the rescue, and his shrinking clothes made him feel too
+large. He contemplated his unhappy state.
+
+Suddenly, he broke out. "I won't stand this, I tell you! Heavens and
+earth, look at the--say, what in the blazes did you want to get me in
+this thing for, anyhow? You're a fine old duffer, you are! Look at that
+ham!"
+
+The freckled man grunted. He seemed somewhat blissful. He was seated
+upon a bench, comfortably enwrapped in his bathing-dress.
+
+The tall man stormed about the cabin.
+
+"This is an outrage! I'll see the captain! I'll tell him what I think
+of--"
+
+He was interrupted by a pair of legs that appeared among the stars. The
+captain came down the ladder. He brought a coffee pot from the sky.
+
+The tall man bristled forward. He was going to denounce everything.
+
+The captain was intent upon the coffee pot, balancing it carefully, and
+leaving his unguided feet to find the steps of the ladder.
+
+But the wrath of the tall man faded. He twirled his fingers in
+excitement, and renewed his ecstatic whisperings to the freckled man.
+
+"It's going to break! Look, quick, look! It'll break in a minute!"
+
+He was transfixed with interest, forgetting his wrongs in staring at the
+perilous passage.
+
+But the captain arrived on the floor with triumphant suspenders.
+
+"Well," said he, "after yeh have eat, maybe ye'd like t'sleep some! If
+so, yeh can sleep on them beds."
+
+The tall man made no reply, save in a strained undertone. "It'll break
+in about a minute! Look, Ted, look quick!"
+
+The freckled man glanced in a little bed on which were heaped boots and
+oilskins. He made a courteous gesture.
+
+"My dear sir, we could not think of depriving you of your beds. No,
+indeed. Just a couple of blankets if you have them, and we'll sleep very
+comfortable on these benches."
+
+The captain protested, politely twisting his back and bobbing his head.
+The suspenders tugged and creaked. The tall man partially suppressed a
+cry, and took a step forward.
+
+The freckled man was sleepily insistent, and shortly the captain gave
+over his deprecatory contortions. He fetched a pink quilt with yellow
+dots on it to the freckled man, and a black one with red roses on it to
+the tall man.
+
+Again he vanished in the firmament. The tall man gazed until the last
+remnant of trousers disappeared from the sky. Then he wrapped himself up
+in his quilt and lay down. The freckled man was puffing contentedly,
+swathed like an infant. The yellow polka-dots rose and fell on the vast
+pink of his chest.
+
+The wanderers slept. In the quiet could be heard the groanings of
+timbers as the sea seemed to crunch them together. The lapping of water
+along the vessel's side sounded like gaspings. A hundred spirits of the
+wind had got their wings entangled in the rigging, and, in soft voices,
+were pleading to be loosened.
+
+The freckled man was awakened by a foreign noise. He opened his eyes and
+saw his companion standing by his couch.
+
+His comrade's face was wan with suffering. His eyes glowed in the
+darkness. He raised his arms, spreading them out like a clergyman at a
+grave. He groaned deep in his chest.
+
+"Good Lord!" yelled the freckled man, starting up. "Tom, Tom, what's th'
+matter?"
+
+The tall man spoke in a fearful voice. "To New York," he said, "to New
+York in our bathing-suits."
+
+The freckled man sank back. The shadows of the cabin threw mysteries
+about the figure of the tall man, arrayed like some ancient and potent
+astrologer in the black quilt with the red roses on it.
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+Directly the tall man went and lay down and began to groan.
+
+The freckled man felt the miseries of the world upon him. He grew angry
+at the tall man awakening him. They quarrelled.
+
+"Well," said the tall man, finally, "we're in a fix."
+
+"I know that," said the other, sharply.
+
+They regarded the ceiling in silence.
+
+"What in the thunder are we going to do?" demanded the tall man, after a
+time. His companion was still silent. "Say," repeated he, angrily, "what
+in the thunder are we going to do?"
+
+"I'm sure I don't know," said the freckled man in a dismal voice.
+
+"Well, think of something," roared the other. "Think of something, you
+old fool. You don't want to make any more idiots of yourself, do you?"
+
+"I ain't made an idiot of myself."
+
+"Well, think. Know anybody in the city?"
+
+"I know a fellow up in Harlem," said the freckled man.
+
+"You know a fellow up in Harlem," howled the tall man. "Up in Harlem!
+How the dickens are we to--say, you're crazy!"
+
+"We can take a cab," cried the other, waxing indignant.
+
+The tall man grew suddenly calm. "Do you know any one else?" he asked,
+measuredly.
+
+"I know another fellow somewhere on Park Place."
+
+"Somewhere on Park Place," repeated the tall man in an unnatural manner.
+"Somewhere on Park Place." With an air of sublime resignation he turned
+his face to the wall.
+
+The freckled man sat erect and frowned in the direction of his
+companion. "Well, now, I suppose you are going to sulk. You make me ill!
+It's the best we can do, ain't it? Hire a cab and go look that fellow up
+on Park--What's that? You can't afford it? What nonsense! You are
+getting--Oh! Well, maybe we can beg some clothes of the captain. Eh?
+Did I see 'im? Certainly, I saw 'im. Yes, it is improbable that a man
+who wears trousers like that can have clothes to lend. No, I won't wear
+oilskins and a sou'-wester. To Athens? Of course not! I don't know where
+it is. Do you? I thought not. With all your grumbling about other
+people, you never know anything important yourself. What? Broadway? I'll
+be hanged first. We can get off at Harlem, man alive. There are no cabs
+in Harlem. I don't think we can bribe a sailor to take us ashore and
+bring a cab to the dock, for the very simple reason that we have nothing
+to bribe him with. What? No, of course not. See here, Tom Sharp, don't
+you swear at me like that. I won't have it. What's that? I ain't,
+either. I ain't. What? I am not. It's no such thing. I ain't. I've got
+more than you have, anyway. Well, you ain't doing anything so very
+brilliant yourself--just lying there and cussin'." At length the tall
+man feigned prodigiously to snore. The freckled man thought with such
+vigor that he fell asleep.
+
+After a time he dreamed that he was in a forest where bass drums grew on
+trees. There came a strong wind that banged the fruit about like empty
+pods. A frightful din was in his ears.
+
+He awoke to find the captain of the schooner standing over him.
+
+"We're at New York now," said the captain, raising his voice above the
+thumping and banging that was being done on deck, "an' I s'pose you
+fellers wanta go ashore." He chuckled in an exasperating manner. "Jes'
+sing out when yeh wanta go," he added, leering at the freckled man.
+
+The tall man awoke, came over and grasped the captain by the throat.
+
+"If you laugh again I'll kill you," he said.
+
+The captain gurgled and waved his legs and arms.
+
+"In the first place," the tall man continued, "you rescued us in a
+deucedly shabby manner. It makes me ill to think of it. I've a mind to
+mop you 'round just for that. In the second place, your vessel is bound
+for Athens, N. Y., and there's no sense in it. Now, will you or will you
+not turn this ship about and take us back where our clothes are, or to
+Philadelphia, where we belong?"
+
+He furiously shook the captain. Then he eased his grip and awaited a
+reply.
+
+"I can't," yelled the captain, "I can't. This vessel don't belong to me.
+I've got to--"
+
+"Well, then," interrupted the tall man, "can you lend us some clothes?"
+
+"Hain't got none," replied the captain, promptly. His face was red, and
+his eyes were glaring.
+
+"Well, then," said the tall man, "can you lend us some money?"
+
+"Hain't got none," replied the captain, promptly. Something overcame him
+and he laughed.
+
+"Thunderation," roared the tall man. He seized the captain, who began to
+have wriggling contortions. The tall man kneaded him as if he were
+biscuits. "You infernal scoundrel," he bellowed, "this whole affair is
+some wretched plot, and you are in it. I am about to kill you."
+
+The solitary whisker of the captain did acrobatic feats like a strange
+demon upon his chin. His eyes stood perilously from his head. The
+suspender wheezed and tugged like the tackle of a sail.
+
+Suddenly the tall man released his hold. Great expectancy sat upon his
+features. "It's going to break!" he cried, rubbing his hands.
+
+But the captain howled and vanished in the sky.
+
+The freckled man then came forward. He appeared filled with sarcasm.
+
+"So!" said he. "So, you've settled the matter. The captain is the only
+man in the world who can help us, and I daresay he'll do anything he can
+now."
+
+"That's all right," said the tall man. "If you don't like the way I run
+things you shouldn't have come on this trip at all."
+
+They had another quarrel.
+
+At the end of it they went on deck. The captain stood at the stern
+addressing the bow with opprobrious language. When he perceived the
+voyagers he began to fling his fists about in the air.
+
+"I'm goin' to put yeh off!" he yelled. The wanderers stared at each
+other.
+
+"Hum," said the tall man.
+
+The freckled man looked at his companion. "He's going to put us off, you
+see," he said, complacently.
+
+The tall man began to walk about and move his shoulders. "I'd like to
+see you do it," he said, defiantly.
+
+The captain tugged at a rope. A boat came at his bidding.
+
+"I'd like to see you do it," the tall man repeated, continually. An
+imperturbable man in rubber boots climbed down in the boat and seized
+the oars. The captain motioned downward. His whisker had a triumphant
+appearance.
+
+The two wanderers looked at the boat. "I guess we'll have to get in,"
+murmured the freckled man.
+
+The tall man was standing like a granite column. "I won't," said he. "I
+won't! I don't care what you do, but I won't!"
+
+"Well, but--" expostulated the other. They held a furious debate.
+
+In the meantime the captain was darting about making sinister gestures,
+but the back of the tall man held him at bay. The crew, much depleted by
+the departure of the imperturbable man into the boat, looked on from the
+bow.
+
+"You're a fool," the freckled man concluded his argument.
+
+"So?" inquired the tall man, highly exasperated.
+
+"So! Well, if you think you're so bright, we'll go in the boat, and then
+you'll see."
+
+He climbed down into the craft and seated himself in an ominous manner
+at the stern.
+
+"You'll see," he said to his companion, as the latter floundered heavily
+down. "You'll see!"
+
+The man in rubber boots calmly rowed the boat toward the shore. As they
+went, the captain leaned over the railing and laughed. The freckled man
+was seated very victoriously.
+
+"Well, wasn't this the right thing after all?" he inquired in a pleasant
+voice. The tall man made no reply.
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+As they neared the dock something seemed suddenly to occur to the
+freckled man.
+
+"Great heavens!" he murmured. He stared at the approaching shore.
+
+"My, what a plight, Tommy!" he quavered.
+
+"Do you think so?" spoke up the tall man. "Why, I really thought you
+liked it." He laughed in a hard voice. "Lord, what a figure you'll cut."
+
+This laugh jarred the freckled man's soul. He became mad.
+
+"Thunderation, turn the boat around!" he roared. "Turn 'er round, quick!
+Man alive, we can't--turn 'er round, d'ye hear!"
+
+The tall man in the stern gazed at his companion with glowing eyes.
+
+"Certainly not," he said. "We're going on. You insisted Upon it." He
+began to prod his companion with words.
+
+The freckled man stood up and waved his arms.
+
+"Sit down," said the tall man. "You'll tip the boat over."
+
+The other man began to shout.
+
+"Sit down!" said the tall man again.
+
+Words bubbled from the freckled man's mouth. There was a little torrent
+of sentences that almost choked him. And he protested passionately with
+his hands.
+
+But the boat went on to the shadow of the docks. The tall man was intent
+upon balancing it as it rocked dangerously during his comrade's oration.
+
+"Sit down," he continually repeated.
+
+"I won't," raged the freckled man. "I won't do anything." The boat
+wobbled with these words.
+
+"Say," he continued, addressing the oarsman, "just turn this boat round,
+will you? Where in the thunder are you taking us to, anyhow?"
+
+The oarsman looked at the sky and thought. Finally he spoke. "I'm doin'
+what the cap'n sed."
+
+"Well, what in th' blazes do I care what the cap'n sed?" demanded the
+freckled man. He took a violent step. "You just turn this round or--"
+
+The small craft reeled. Over one side water came flashing in. The
+freckled man cried out in fear, and gave a jump to the other side. The
+tall man roared orders, and the oarsman made efforts. The boat acted for
+a moment like an animal on a slackened wire. Then it upset.
+
+"Sit down!" said the tall man, in a final roar as he was plunged into
+the water. The oarsman dropped his oars to grapple with the gunwale. He
+went down saying unknown words. The freckled man's explanation or
+apology was strangled by the water.
+
+Two or three tugs let off whistles of astonishment, and continued on
+their paths. A man dozing on a dock aroused and began to caper.
+
+The passengers on a ferry-boat all ran to the near railing. A miraculous
+person in a small boat was bobbing on the waves near the piers. He
+sculled hastily toward the scene. It was a swirl of waters in the midst
+of which the dark bottom of the boat appeared, whale-like.
+
+Two heads suddenly came up.
+
+"839," said the freckled man, chokingly. "That's it! 839!"
+
+"What is?" said the tall man.
+
+"That's the number of that feller on Park Place. I just remembered."
+
+"You're the bloomingest--" the tall man said.
+
+"It wasn't my fault," interrupted his companion. "If you hadn't--" He
+tried to gesticulate, but one hand held to the keel of the boat, and the
+other was supporting the form of the oarsman. The latter had fought a
+battle with his immense rubber boots and had been conquered.
+
+The rescuer in the other small boat came fiercely. As his craft glided
+up, he reached out and grasped the tall man by the collar and dragged
+him into the boat, interrupting what was, under the circumstances, a
+very brilliant flow of rhetoric directed at the freckled man. The
+oarsman of the wrecked craft was taken tenderly over the gunwale and
+laid in the bottom of the boat. Puffing and blowing, the freckled man
+climbed in.
+
+"You'll upset this one before we can get ashore," the other voyager
+remarked.
+
+As they turned toward the land they saw that the nearest dock was lined
+with people. The freckled man gave a little moan.
+
+But the staring eyes of the crowd were fixed on the limp form of the man
+in rubber boots. A hundred hands reached down to help lift the body up.
+On the dock some men grabbed it and began to beat it and roll it. A
+policeman tossed the spectators about. Each individual in the heaving
+crowd sought to fasten his eyes on the blue-tinted face of the man in
+the rubber boots. They surged to and fro, while the policeman beat them
+indiscriminately.
+
+The wanderers came modestly up the dock and gazed shrinkingly at the
+throng. They stood for a moment, holding their breath to see the first
+finger of amazement levelled at them.
+
+But the crowd bended and surged in absorbing anxiety to view the man in
+rubber boots, whose face fascinated them. The sea-wanderers were as
+though they were not there.
+
+They stood without the jam and whispered hurriedly.
+
+"839," said the freckled man.
+
+"All right," said the tall man.
+
+Under the pommeling hands the oarsman showed signs of life. The voyagers
+watched him make a protesting kick at the leg of the crowd, the while
+uttering angry groans.
+
+"He's better," said the tall man, softly; "let's make off."
+
+Together they stole noiselessly up the dock. Directly in front of it
+they found a row of six cabs.
+
+The drivers on top were filled with a mighty curiosity. They had driven
+hurriedly from the adjacent ferry-house when they had seen the first
+running sign of an accident. They were straining on their toes and
+gazing at the tossing backs of the men in the crowd.
+
+The wanderers made a little detour, and then went rapidly towards a cab.
+They stopped in front of it and looked up.
+
+"Driver," called the tall man, softly.
+
+The man was intent.
+
+"Driver," breathed the freckled man. They stood for a moment and gazed
+imploringly.
+
+The cabman suddenly moved his feet. "By Jimmy, I bet he's a gonner," he
+said, in an ecstacy, and he again relapsed into a statue.
+
+The freckled man groaned and wrung his hands. The tall man climbed into
+the cab.
+
+"Come in here," he said to his companion. The freckled man climbed in,
+and the tall man reached over and pulled the door shut. Then he put his
+head out the window.
+
+"Driver," he roared, sternly, "839 Park Place--and quick."
+
+The driver looked down and met the eye of the tall man. "Eh?--Oh--839?
+Park Place? Yessir." He reluctantly gave his horse a clump on the back.
+As the conveyance rattled off the wanderers huddled back among the
+dingy cushions and heaved great breaths of relief.
+
+"Well, it's all over," said the freckled man, finally. "We're about out
+of it. And quicker than I expected. Much quicker. It looked to me
+sometimes that we were doomed. I am thankful to find it not so. I am
+rejoiced. And I hope and trust that you--well, I don't wish to--perhaps
+it is not the proper time to--that is, I don't wish to intrude a moral
+at an inopportune moment, but, my dear, dear fellow, I think the time is
+ripe to point out to you that your obstinacy, your selfishness, your
+villainous temper, and your various other faults can make it just as
+unpleasant for your ownself, my dear boy, as they frequently do for
+other people. You can see what you brought us to, and I most sincerely
+hope, my dear, dear fellow, that I shall soon see those signs in you
+which shall lead me to believe that you have become a wiser man."
+
+
+
+
+THE END OF THE BATTLE
+
+
+A sergeant, a corporal, and fourteen men of the Twelfth Regiment of the
+Line had been sent out to occupy a house on the main highway. They would
+be at least a half of a mile in advance of any other picket of their own
+people. Sergeant Morton was deeply angry at being sent on this duty. He
+said that he was over-worked. There were at least two sergeants, he
+claimed furiously, whose turn it should have been to go on this arduous
+mission. He was treated unfairly; he was abused by his superiors; why
+did any damned fool ever join the army? As for him he would get out of
+it as soon as possible; he was sick of it; the life of a dog. All this
+he said to the corporal, who listened attentively, giving grunts of
+respectful assent. On the way to this post two privates took occasion to
+drop to the rear and pilfer in the orchard of a deserted plantation.
+When the sergeant discovered this absence, he grew black with a rage
+which was an accumulation of all his irritations. "Run, you!" he howled.
+"Bring them here! I'll show them--" A private ran swiftly to the rear.
+The remainder of the squad began to shout nervously at the two
+delinquents, whose figures they could see in the deep shade of the
+orchard, hurriedly picking fruit from the ground and cramming it within
+their shirts, next to their skins. The beseeching cries of their
+comrades stirred the criminals more than did the barking of the
+sergeant. They ran to rejoin the squad, while holding their loaded
+bosoms and with their mouths open with aggrieved explanations.
+
+Jones faced the sergeant with a horrible cancer marked in bumps on his
+left side. The disease of Patterson showed quite around the front of his
+waist in many protuberances. "A nice pair!" said the sergeant, with
+sudden frigidity. "You're the kind of soldiers a man wants to choose for
+a dangerous outpost duty, ain't you?"
+
+The two privates stood at attention, still looking much aggrieved. "We
+only--" began Jones huskily.
+
+"Oh, you 'only!'" cried the sergeant. "Yes, you 'only.' I know all about
+that. But if you think you are going to trifle with me--"
+
+A moment later the squad moved on towards its station. Behind the
+sergeant's back Jones and Patterson were slyly passing apples and pears
+to their friends while the sergeant expounded eloquently to the
+corporal. "You see what kind of men are in the army now. Why, when I
+joined the regiment it was a very different thing, I can tell you. Then
+a sergeant had some authority, and if a man disobeyed orders, he had a
+very small chance of escaping something extremely serious. But now! Good
+God! If I report these men, the captain will look over a lot of beastly
+orderly sheets and say--'Haw, eh, well, Sergeant Morton, these men seem
+to have very good records; very good records, indeed. I can't be too
+hard on them; no, not too hard.'" Continued the sergeant: "I tell you,
+Flagler, the army is no place for a decent man."
+
+Flagler, the corporal, answered with a sincerity of appreciation which
+with him had become a science. "I think you are right, sergeant," he
+answered.
+
+Behind them the privates mumbled discreetly. "Damn this sergeant of
+ours. He thinks we are made of wood. I don't see any reason for all this
+strictness when we are on active service. It isn't like being at home in
+barracks! There is no great harm in a couple of men dropping out to raid
+an orchard of the enemy when all the world knows that we haven't had a
+decent meal in twenty days."
+
+The reddened face of Sergeant Morton suddenly showed to the rear. "A
+little more marching and less talking," he said.
+
+When he came to the house he had been ordered to occupy the sergeant
+sniffed with disdain. "These people must have lived like cattle," he
+said angrily. To be sure, the place was not alluring. The ground floor
+had been used for the housing of cattle, and it was dark and terrible. A
+flight of steps led to the lofty first floor, which was denuded but
+respectable. The sergeant's visage lightened when he saw the strong
+walls of stone and cement. "Unless they turn guns on us, they will never
+get us out of here," he said cheerfully to the squad. The men, anxious
+to keep him in an amiable mood, all hurriedly grinned and seemed very
+appreciative and pleased. "I'll make this into a fortress," he
+announced. He sent Jones and Patterson, the two orchard thieves, out on
+sentry-duty. He worked the others, then, until he could think of no more
+things to tell them to do. Afterwards he went forth, with a major-
+general's serious scowl, and examined the ground in front of his
+position. In returning he came upon a sentry, Jones, munching an apple.
+He sternly commanded him to throw it away.
+
+The men spread their blankets on the floors of the bare rooms, and
+putting their packs under their heads and lighting their pipes, they
+lived an easy peace. Bees hummed in the garden, and a scent of flowers
+came through the open window. A great fan-shaped bit of sunshine smote
+the face of one man, and he indolently cursed as he moved his primitive
+bed to a shadier place.
+
+Another private explained to a comrade: "This is all nonsense anyhow. No
+sense in occupying this post. They--"
+
+"But, of course," said the corporal, "when she told me herself that she
+cared more for me than she did for him, I wasn't going to stand any of
+his talk--" The corporal's listener was so sleepy that he could only
+grunt his sympathy.
+
+There was a sudden little spatter of shooting. A cry from Jones rang
+out. With no intermediate scrambling, the sergeant leaped straight to
+his feet. "Now," he cried, "let us see what you are made of! If," he
+added bitterly, "you are made of anything!"
+
+A man yelled: "Good God, can't you see you're all tangled up in my
+cartridge belt?"
+
+Another man yelled: "Keep off my legs! Can't you walk on the floor?"
+
+To the windows there was a blind rush of slumberous men, who brushed
+hair from their eyes even as they made ready their rifles. Jones and
+Patterson came stumbling up the steps, crying dreadful information.
+Already the enemy's bullets were spitting and singing over the house.
+
+The sergeant suddenly was stiff and cold with a sense of the importance
+of the thing. "Wait until you see one," he drawled loudly and calmly,
+"then shoot."
+
+For some moments the enemy's bullets swung swifter than lightning over
+the house without anybody being able to discover a target. In this
+interval a man was shot in the throat. He gurgled, and then lay down on
+the floor. The blood slowly waved down the brown skin of his neck while
+he looked meekly at his comrades.
+
+There was a howl. "There they are! There they come!" The rifles
+crackled. A light smoke drifted idly through the rooms. There was a
+strong odor as if from burnt paper and the powder of firecrackers. The
+men were silent. Through the windows and about the house the bullets of
+an entirely invisible enemy moaned, hummed, spat, burst, and sang.
+
+The men began to curse. "Why can't we see them?" they muttered through
+their teeth. The sergeant was still frigid. He answered soothingly as if
+he were directly reprehensible for this behavior of the enemy. "Wait a
+moment. You will soon be able to see them. There! Give it to them!" A
+little skirt of black figures had appeared in a field. It was really
+like shooting at an upright needle from the full length of a ballroom.
+But the men's spirits improved as soon as the enemy--this mysterious
+enemy--became a tangible thing, and far off. They had believed the foe
+to be shooting at them from the adjacent garden.
+
+"Now," said the sergeant ambitiously, "we can beat them off easily if
+you men are good enough."
+
+A man called out in a tone of quick, great interest. "See that fellow on
+horseback, Bill? Isn't he on horseback? I thought he was on horseback."
+
+There was a fusilade against another side of the house. The sergeant
+dashed into the room which commanded the situation. He found a dead
+soldier on the floor. He rushed out howling: "When was Knowles killed?
+When was Knowles killed? When was Knowles killed? Damn it, when was
+Knowles killed?" It was absolutely essential to find out the exact
+moment this man died. A blackened private turned upon his sergeant and
+demanded: "How in hell do I know?" Sergeant Morton had a sense of anger
+so brief that in the next second he cried: "Patterson!" He had even
+forgotten his vital interest in the time of Knowles' death.
+
+"Yes?" said Patterson, his face set with some deep-rooted quality of
+determination. Still, he was a mere farm boy.
+
+"Go in to Knowles' window and shoot at those people," said the sergeant
+hoarsely. Afterwards he coughed. Some of the fumes of the fight had made
+way to his lungs.
+
+Patterson looked at the door into this other room. He looked at it as if
+he suspected it was to be his death-chamber. Then he entered and stood
+across the body of Knowles and fired vigorously into a group of plum
+trees.
+
+"They can't take this house," declared the sergeant in a contemptuous
+and argumentative tone. He was apparently replying to somebody. The man
+who had been shot in the throat looked up at him. Eight men were firing
+from the windows. The sergeant detected in a corner three wounded men
+talking together feebly. "Don't you think there is anything to do?" he
+bawled. "Go and get Knowles' cartridges and give them to somebody who
+can use them! Take Simpson's too." The man who had been shot in the
+throat looked at him. Of the three wounded men who had been talking, one
+said: "My leg is all doubled up under me, sergeant." He spoke
+apologetically.
+
+Meantime the sergeant was re-loading his rifle. His foot slipped in the
+blood of the man who had been shot in the throat, and the military boot
+made a greasy red streak on the floor.
+
+"Why, we can hold this place!" shouted the sergeant jubilantly. "Who
+says we can't?"
+
+Corporal Flagler suddenly spun away from his window and fell in a heap.
+
+"Sergeant," murmured a man as he dropped to a seat on the floor out of
+danger, "I can't stand this. I swear I can't. I think we should run
+away."
+
+Morton, with the kindly eyes of a good shepherd, looked at the man. "You
+are afraid, Johnston, you are afraid," he said softly. The man struggled
+to his feet, cast upon the sergeant a gaze full of admiration, reproach,
+and despair, and returned to his post. A moment later he pitched
+forward, and thereafter his body hung out of the window, his arms
+straight and the fists clenched. Incidentally this corpse was pierced
+afterwards by chance three times by bullets of the enemy.
+
+The sergeant laid his rifle against the stonework of the window-frame
+and shot with care until his magazine was empty. Behind him a man,
+simply grazed on the elbow, was wildly sobbing like a girl. "Damn it,
+shut up!" said Morton, without turning his head. Before him was a vista
+of a garden, fields, clumps of trees, woods, populated at the time with
+little fleeting figures.
+
+He grew furious. "Why didn't he send me orders?" he cried aloud. The
+emphasis on the word "he" was impressive. A mile back on the road a
+galloper of the Hussars lay dead beside his dead horse.
+
+The man who had been grazed on the elbow still set up his bleat.
+Morton's fury veered to this soldier. "Can't you shut up? Can't you shut
+up? Can't you shut up? Fight! That's the thing to do. Fight!"
+
+A bullet struck Morton, and he fell upon the man who had been shot in
+the throat. There was a sickening moment. Then the sergeant rolled off
+to a position upon the bloody floor. He turned himself with a last
+effort until he could look at the wounded who were able to look at him.
+
+"Kim up, the Kickers," he said thickly. His arms weakened and he dropped
+on his face.
+
+After an interval a young subaltern of the enemy's infantry, followed by
+his eager men, burst into this reeking interior. But just over the
+threshold he halted before the scene of blood and death. He turned with
+a shrug to his sergeant. "God, I should have estimated them at least one
+hundred strong."
+
+
+
+
+UPTURNED FACE
+
+
+"What will we do now?" said the adjutant, troubled and excited.
+
+"Bury him," said Timothy Lean.
+
+The two officers looked down close to their toes where lay the body of
+their comrade. The face was chalk-blue; gleaming eyes stared at the sky.
+Over the two upright figures was a windy sound of bullets, and on the
+top of the hill Lean's prostrate company of Spitzbergen infantry was
+firing measured volleys.
+
+"Don't you think it would be better--" began the adjutant. "We might
+leave him until tomorrow."
+
+"No," said Lean. "I can't hold that post an hour longer. I've got to
+fall back, and we've got to bury old Bill."
+
+"Of course," said the adjutant, at once. "Your men got intrenching
+tools?"
+
+Lean shouted back to his little line, and two men came slowly, one with
+a pick, one with a shovel. They started in the direction of the Rostina
+sharp-shooters. Bullets cracked near their ears. "Dig here," said Lean
+gruffly. The men, thus caused to lower their glances to the turf, became
+hurried and frightened merely because they could not look to see whence
+the bullets came. The dull beat of the pick striking the earth sounded
+amid the swift snap of close bullets. Presently the other private began
+to shovel.
+
+"I suppose," said the adjutant, slowly, "we'd better search his clothes
+for--things."
+
+Lean nodded. Together in curious abstraction they looked at the body.
+Then Lean stirred his shoulders suddenly, arousing himself.
+
+"Yes," he said, "we'd better see what he's got." He dropped to his
+knees, and his hands approached the body of the dead officer. But his
+hands wavered over the buttons of the tunic. The first button was brick-
+red with drying blood, and he did not seem to dare touch it.
+
+"Go on," said the adjutant, hoarsely.
+
+Lean stretched his wooden hand, and his fingers fumbled the blood-
+stained buttons. At last he rose with ghastly face. He had gathered a
+watch, a whistle, a pipe, a tobacco pouch, a handkerchief, a little case
+of cards and papers. He looked at the adjutant. There was a silence. The
+adjutant was feeling that he had been a coward to make Lean do all the
+grisly business.
+
+"Well," said Lean, "that's all, I think. You have his sword and
+revolver?"
+
+"Yes," said the adjutant, his face working, and then he burst out in a
+sudden strange fury at the two privates. "Why don't you hurry up with
+that grave? What are you doing, anyhow? Hurry, do you hear? I never saw
+such stupid--"
+
+Even as he cried out in his passion the two men were laboring for their
+lives. Ever overhead the bullets were spitting.
+
+The grave was finished, It was not a masterpiece--a poor little shallow
+thing. Lean and the adjutant again looked at each other in a curious
+silent communication.
+
+Suddenly the adjutant croaked out a weird laugh. It was a terrible
+laugh, which had its origin in that part of the mind which is first
+moved by the singing of the nerves. "Well," he said, humorously to Lean,
+"I suppose we had best tumble him in."
+
+"Yes," said Lean. The two privates stood waiting, bent over their
+implements. "I suppose," said Lean, "it would be better if we laid him
+in ourselves."
+
+"Yes," said the adjutant. Then apparently remembering that he had made
+Lean search the body, he stooped with great fortitude and took hold of
+the dead officer's clothing. Lean joined him. Both were particular that
+their fingers should not feel the corpse. They tugged away; the corpse
+lifted, heaved, toppled, flopped into the grave, and the two officers,
+straightening, looked again at each other--they were always looking at
+each other. They sighed with relief.
+
+The adjutant said, "I suppose we should--we should say something. Do you
+know the service, Tim?"
+
+"They don't read the service until the grave is filled in," said Lean,
+pressing his lips to an academic expression.
+
+"Don't they?" said the adjutant, shocked that he had made the mistake.
+
+"Oh, well," he cried, suddenly, "let us--let us say something--while he
+can hear us."
+
+"All right," said Lean. "Do you know the service?"
+
+"I can't remember a line of it," said the adjutant.
+
+Lean was extremely dubious. "I can repeat two lines, but--"
+
+"Well, do it," said the adjutant. "Go as far as you can. That's better
+than nothing. And the beasts have got our range exactly."
+
+Lean looked at his two men. "Attention," he barked. The privates came to
+attention with a click, looking much aggrieved. The adjutant lowered his
+helmet to his knee. Lean, bareheaded, he stood over the grave. The
+Rostina sharpshooters fired briskly.
+
+"Oh, Father, our friend has sunk in the deep waters of death, but his
+spirit has leaped toward Thee as the bubble arises from the lips of the
+drowning. Perceive, we beseech, O Father, the little flying bubble,
+and--".
+
+Lean, although husky and ashamed, had suffered no hesitation up to this
+point, but he stopped with a hopeless feeling and looked at the corpse.
+
+The adjutant moved uneasily. "And from Thy superb heights--" he began,
+and then he too came to an end.
+
+"And from Thy superb heights," said Lean.
+
+The adjutant suddenly remembered a phrase in the back part of the
+Spitzbergen burial service, and he exploited it with the triumphant
+manner of a man who has recalled everything, and can go on.
+
+"Oh, God, have mercy--"
+
+"Oh, God, have mercy--" said Lean.
+
+"Mercy," repeated the adjutant, in quick failure.
+
+"Mercy," said Lean. And then he was moved by some violence of feeling,
+for he turned suddenly upon his two men and tigerishly said, "Throw the
+dirt in."
+
+The fire of the Rostina sharpshooters was accurate and continuous.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One of the aggrieved privates came forward with his shovel. He lifted
+his first shovel-load of earth, and for a moment of inexplicable
+hesitation it was held poised above this corpse, which from its chalk-
+blue face looked keenly out from the grave. Then the soldier emptied his
+shovel on--on the feet.
+
+Timothy Lean felt as if tons had been swiftly lifted from off his
+forehead. He had felt that perhaps the private might empty the shovel
+on--on the face. It had been emptied on the feet. There was a great
+point gained there--ha, ha!--the first shovelful had been emptied on
+the feet. How satisfactory!
+
+The adjutant began to babble. "Well, of course--a man we've messed with
+all these years--impossible--you can't, you know, leave your intimate
+friends rotting on the field. Go on, for God's sake, and shovel, you!"
+
+The man with the shovel suddenly ducked, grabbed his left arm with his
+right hand, and looked at his officer for orders. Lean picked the shovel
+from the ground. "Go to the rear," he said to the wounded man. He also
+addressed the other private. "You get under cover, too; I'll finish this
+business."
+
+The wounded man scrambled hard still for the top of the ridge without
+devoting any glances to the direction whence the bullets came, and the
+other man followed at an equal pace; but he was different, in that he
+looked back anxiously three times.
+
+This is merely the way--often--of the hit and unhit.
+
+Timothy Lean filled the shovel, hesitated, and then in a movement which
+was like a gesture of abhorrence he flung the dirt into the grave, and
+as it landed it made a sound--plop! Lean suddenly stopped and mopped his
+brow--a tired laborer.
+
+"Perhaps we have been wrong," said the adjutant. His glance wavered
+stupidly. "It might have been better if we hadn't buried him just at
+this time. Of course, if we advance to-morrow the body would have
+been--"
+
+"Damn you," said Lean, "shut your mouth!" He was not the senior officer.
+
+He again filled the shovel and flung the earth. Always the earth made
+that sound--plop! For a space Lean worked frantically, like a man
+digging himself out of danger.
+
+Soon there was nothing to be seen but the chalk-blue face. Lean filled
+the shovel. "Good God," he cried to the adjutant. "Why didn't you turn
+him somehow when you put him in? This--" Then Lean began to stutter.
+
+The adjutant understood. He was pale to the lips. "Go on, man," he
+cried, beseechingly, almost in a shout. Lean swung back the shovel. It
+went forward in a pendulum curve. When the earth landed it made a sound
+--plop!
+
+
+
+
+AN EPISODE OF WAR
+
+
+The lieutenant's rubber blanket lay on the ground, and upon it he had
+poured the company's supply of coffee. Corporals and other
+representatives of the grimy and hot-throated men who lined the
+breastwork had come for each squad's portion.
+
+The lieutenant was frowning and serious at this task of division. His
+lips pursed as he drew with his sword various crevices in the heap until
+brown squares of coffee, astoundingly equal in size, appeared on the
+blanket. He was on the verge of a great triumph in mathematics, and the
+corporals were thronging forward, each to reap a little square, when
+suddenly the lieutenant cried out and looked quickly at a man near him
+as if he suspected it was a case of personal assault. The others cried
+out also when they saw blood upon the lieutenant's sleeve.
+
+He had winced like a man stung, swayed dangerously, and then
+straightened. The sound of his hoarse breathing was plainly audible. He
+looked sadly, mystically, over the breastwork at the green face of a
+wood, where now were many little puffs of white smoke. During this
+moment the men about him gazed statue-like and silent, astonished and
+awed by this catastrophe which happened when catastrophes were not
+expected--when they had leisure to observe it.
+
+As the lieutenant stared at the wood, they too swung their heads, so
+that for another instant all hands, still silent, contemplated the
+distant forest as if their minds were fixed upon the mystery of a
+bullet's journey.
+
+The officer had, of course, been compelled to take his sword into his
+left hand. He did not hold it by the hilt. He gripped it at the middle
+of the blade, awkwardly. Turning his eyes from the hostile wood, he
+looked at the sword as he held it there, and seemed puzzled as to what
+to do with it, where to put it. In short, this weapon had of a sudden
+become a strange thing to him. He looked at it in a kind of
+stupefaction, as if he had been endowed with a trident, a sceptre, or a
+spade.
+
+Finally he tried to sheath it. To sheath a sword held by the left hand,
+at the middle of the blade, in a scabbard hung at the left hip, is a
+feat worthy of a sawdust ring. This wounded officer engaged in a
+desperate struggle with the sword and the wobbling scabbard, and during
+the time of it he breathed like a wrestler.
+
+But at this instant the men, the spectators, awoke from their stone-like
+poses and crowded forward sympathetically. The orderly-sergeant took the
+sword and tenderly placed it in the scabbard. At the time, he leaned
+nervously backward, and did not allow even his finger to brush the body
+of the lieutenant. A wound gives strange dignity to him who bears it.
+Well men shy from this new and terrible majesty. It is as if the wounded
+man's hand is upon the curtain which hangs before the revelations of all
+existence--the meaning of ants, potentates, wars, cities, sunshine,
+snow, a feather dropped from a bird's wing; and the power of it sheds
+radiance upon a bloody form, and makes the other men understand
+sometimes that they are little. His comrades look at him with large eyes
+thoughtfully. Moreover, they fear vaguely that the weight of a finger
+upon him might send him headlong, precipitate the tragedy, hurl him at
+once into the dim, grey unknown. And so the orderly-sergeant, while
+sheathing the sword, leaned nervously backward.
+
+There were others who proffered assistance. One timidly presented his
+shoulder and asked the lieutenant if he cared to lean upon it, but the
+latter waved him away mournfully. He wore the look of one who knows he
+is the victim of a terrible disease and understands his helplessness. He
+again stared over the breastwork at the forest, and then turning went
+slowly rearward. He held his right wrist tenderly in his left hand as if
+the wounded arm was made of very brittle glass.
+
+And the men in silence stared at the wood, then at the departing
+lieutenant--then at the wood, then at the lieutenant.
+
+As the wounded officer passed from the line of battle, he was enabled to
+see many things which as a participant in the fight were unknown to him.
+He saw a general on a black horse gazing over the lines of blue infantry
+at the green woods which veiled his problems. An aide galloped
+furiously, dragged his horse suddenly to a halt, saluted, and presented
+a paper. It was, for a wonder, precisely like an historical painting.
+
+To the rear of the general and his staff a group, composed of a bugler,
+two or three orderlies, and the bearer of the corps standard, all upon
+maniacal horses, were working like slaves to hold their ground,
+preserve, their respectful interval, while the shells boomed in the air
+about them, and caused their chargers to make furious quivering leaps.
+
+A battery, a tumultuous and shining mass, was swirling toward the right.
+The wild thud of hoofs, the cries of the riders shouting blame and
+praise, menace and encouragement, and, last the roar of the wheels, the
+slant of the glistening guns, brought the lieutenant to an intent pause.
+The battery swept in curves that stirred the heart; it made halts as
+dramatic as the crash of a wave on the rocks, and when it fled onward,
+this aggregation of wheels, levers, motors, had a beautiful unity, as if
+it were a missile. The sound of it was a war-chorus that reached into
+the depths of man's emotion.
+
+The lieutenant, still holding his arm as if it were of glass, stood
+watching this battery until all detail of it was lost, save the figures
+of the riders, which rose and fell and waved lashes over the black mass.
+
+Later, he turned his eyes toward the battle where the shooting sometimes
+crackled like bush-fires, sometimes sputtered with exasperating
+irregularity, and sometimes reverberated like the thunder. He saw the
+smoke rolling upward and saw crowds of men who ran and cheered, or stood
+and blazed away at the inscrutable distance.
+
+He came upon some stragglers, and they told him how to find the field
+hospital. They described its exact location. In fact, these men, no
+longer having part in the battle, knew more of it than others. They told
+the performance of every corps, every division, the opinion of every
+general. The lieutenant, carrying his wounded arm rearward, looked upon
+them with wonder.
+
+At the roadside a brigade was making coffee and buzzing with talk like a
+girls' boarding-school. Several officers came out to him and inquired
+concerning things of which he knew nothing. One, seeing his arm, began
+to scold. "Why, man, that's no way to do. You want to fix that thing."
+He appropriated the lieutenant and the lieutenant's wound. He cut the
+sleeve and laid bare the arm, every nerve of which softly fluttered
+under his touch. He bound his handkerchief over the wound, scolding away
+in the meantime. His tone allowed one to think that he was in the habit
+of being wounded every day. The lieutenant hung his head, feeling, in
+this presence, that he did not know how to be correctly wounded.
+
+The low white tents of the hospital were grouped around an old school-
+house. There was here a singular commotion. In the foreground two
+ambulances interlocked wheels in the deep mud. The drivers were tossing
+the blame of it back and forth, gesticulating and berating, while from
+the ambulances, both crammed with wounded, there came an occasional
+groan. An interminable crowd of bandaged men were coming and going.
+Great numbers sat under the trees nursing heads or arms or legs. There
+was a dispute of some kind raging on the steps of the school-house.
+Sitting with his back against a tree a man with a face as grey as a new
+army blanket was serenely smoking a corn-cob pipe. The lieutenant wished
+to rush forward and inform him that he was dying.
+
+A busy surgeon was passing near the lieutenant. "Good-morning," he said,
+with a friendly smile. Then he caught sight of the lieutenant's arm and
+his face at once changed. "Well, let's have a look at it." He seemed
+possessed suddenly of a great contempt for the lieutenant. This wound
+evidently placed the latter on a very low social plane. The doctor cried
+out impatiently, "What mutton-head had tied it up that way anyhow?" The
+lieutenant answered, "Oh, a man."
+
+When the wound was disclosed the doctor fingered it disdainfully.
+"Humph," he said. "You come along with me and I'll 'tend to you." His
+voice contained the same scorn as if he were saying, "You will have to
+go to jail."
+
+The lieutenant had been very meek, but now his face flushed, and he
+looked into the doctor's eyes. "I guess I won't have it amputated," he
+said.
+
+"Nonsense, man! Nonsense! Nonsense!" cried the doctor. "Come along, now.
+I won't amputate it. Come along. Don't be a baby."
+
+"Let go of me," said the lieutenant, holding back wrathfully, his glance
+fixed upon the door of the old school-house, as sinister to him as the
+portals of death.
+
+And this is the story of how the lieutenant lost his arm. When he
+reached home, his sisters, his mother, his wife sobbed for a long time
+at the sight of the flat sleeve. "Oh, well," he said, standing
+shamefaced amid these tears, "I don't suppose it matters so much as all
+that."
+
+
+
+
+AN EXPERIMENT IN MISERY
+
+
+It was late at night, and a fine rain was swirling softly down, causing
+the pavements to glisten with hue of steel and blue and yellow in the
+rays of the innumerable lights. A youth was trudging slowly, without
+enthusiasm, with his hands buried deep in his trousers' pockets, toward
+the downtown places where beds can be hired for coppers. He was clothed
+in an aged and tattered suit, and his derby was a marvel of dust-covered
+crown and torn rim. He was going forth to eat as the wanderer may eat,
+and sleep as the homeless sleep. By the time he had reached City Hall
+Park he was so completely plastered with yells of "bum" and "hobo," and
+with various unholy epithets that small boys had applied to him at
+intervals, that he was in a state of the most profound dejection. The
+sifting rain saturated the old velvet collar of his overcoat, and as the
+wet cloth pressed against his neck, he felt that there no longer could
+be pleasure in life. He looked about him searching for an outcast of
+highest degree that they too might share miseries, but the lights threw
+a quivering glare over rows and circles of deserted benches that
+glistened damply, showing patches of wet sod behind them. It seemed that
+their usual freights had fled on this night to better things. There were
+only squads of well-dressed Brooklyn people who swarmed towards the
+bridge.
+
+The young man loitered about for a time and then went shuffling off down
+Park Row. In the sudden descent in style of the dress of the crowd he
+felt relief, and as if he were at last in his own country. He began to
+see tatters that matched his tatters. In Chatham Square there were
+aimless men strewn in front of saloons and lodging-houses, standing
+sadly, patiently, reminding one vaguely of the attitudes of chickens in
+a storm. He aligned himself with these men, and turned slowly to occupy
+himself with the flowing life of the great street.
+
+Through the mists of the cold and storming night, the cable cars went in
+silent procession, great affairs shining with red and brass, moving with
+formidable power, calm and irresistible, dangerful and gloomy, breaking
+silence only by the loud fierce cry of the gong. Two rivers of people
+swarmed along the sidewalks, spattered with black mud, which made each
+shoe leave a scarlike impression. Overhead elevated trains with a shrill
+grinding of the wheels stopped at the station, which upon its leglike
+pillars seemed to resemble some monstrous kind of crab squatting over
+the street. The quick fat puffings of the engines could be heard. Down
+an alley there were somber curtains of purple and black, on which street
+lamps dully glittered like embroidered flowers.
+
+A saloon stood with a voracious air on a corner. A sign leaning against
+the front of the door-post announced "Free hot soup to-night!" The swing
+doors, snapping to and fro like ravenous lips, made gratified smacks as
+the saloon gorged itself with plump men, eating with astounding and
+endless appetite, smiling in some indescribable manner as the men came
+from all directions like sacrifices to a heathenish superstition.
+
+Caught by the delectable sign the young man allowed himself to be
+swallowed. A bartender placed a schooner of dark and portentous beer on
+the bar. Its monumental form upreared until the froth a-top was above
+the crown of the young man's brown derby.
+
+"Soup over there, gents," said the bartender affably. A little yellow
+man in rags and the youth grasped their schooners and went with speed
+toward a lunch counter, where a man with oily but imposing whiskers
+ladled genially from a kettle until he had furnished his two mendicants
+with a soup that was steaming hot, and in which there were little
+floating suggestions of chicken. The young man, sipping his broth, felt
+the cordiality expressed by the warmth of the mixture, and he beamed at
+the man with oily but imposing whiskers, who was presiding like a priest
+behind an altar. "Have some more, gents?" he inquired of the two sorry
+figures before him. The little yellow man accepted with a swift gesture,
+but the youth shook his head and went out, following a man whose
+wondrous seediness promised that he would have a knowledge of cheap
+lodging-houses.
+
+On the sidewalk he accosted the seedy man. "Say, do you know a cheap
+place to sleep?"
+
+The other hesitated for a time, gazing sideways. Finally he nodded in
+the direction of the street, "I sleep up there," he said, "when I've got
+the price."
+
+"How much?"
+
+"Ten cents."
+ The young man shook his head dolefully. "That's too rich for me."
+
+At that moment there approached the two a reeling man in strange
+garments. His head was a fuddle of bushy hair and whiskers, from which
+his eyes peered with a guilty slant. In a close scrutiny it was possible
+to distinguish the cruel lines of a mouth which looked as if its lips
+had just closed with satisfaction over some tender and piteous morsel.
+He appeared like an assassin steeped in crimes performed awkwardly.
+
+But at this time his voice was tuned to the coaxing key of an
+affectionate puppy. He looked at the men with wheedling eyes, and began
+to sing a little melody for charity.
+
+"Say, gents, can't yeh give a poor feller a couple of cents t' git a
+bed? I got five, and I gits anudder two I gits me a bed. Now, on th'
+square, gents, can't yeh jest gimme two cents t' git a bed? Now, yeh
+know how a respecter'ble gentlem'n feels when he's down on his luck, an'
+I--"
+
+The seedy man, staring with imperturbable countenance at a train which
+clattered overhead, interrupted in an expressionless voice--"Ah, go t'
+h----!"
+
+But the youth spoke to the prayerful assassin in tones of astonishment
+and inquiry. "Say, you must be crazy! Why don't yeh strike somebody that
+looks as if they had money?"
+
+The assassin, tottering about on his uncertain legs, and at intervals
+brushing imaginary obstacles from before his nose, entered into a long
+explanation of the psychology of the situation. It was so profound that
+it was unintelligible.
+
+When he had exhausted the subject, the young man said to him:
+
+"Let's see th' five cents."
+
+The assassin wore an expression of drunken woe at this sentence, filled
+with suspicion of him. With a deeply pained air he began to fumble in
+his clothing, his red hands trembling. Presently he announced in a voice
+of bitter grief, as if he had been betrayed--"There's on'y four."
+
+"Four," said the young man thoughtfully. "Well, look here, I'm a
+stranger here, an' if ye'll steer me to your cheap joint I'll find the
+other three."
+
+The assassin's countenance became instantly radiant with joy. His
+whiskers quivered with the wealth of his alleged emotions. He seized the
+young man's hand in a transport of delight and friendliness.
+
+"B' Gawd," he cried, "if ye'll do that, b' Gawd, I'd say yeh was a
+damned good fellow, I would, an' I'd remember yeh all m' life, I would,
+b' Gawd, an' if I ever got a chance I'd return the compliment"--he spoke
+with drunken dignity--"b' Gawd, I'd treat yeh white, I would, an' I'd
+allus remember yeh."
+
+The young man drew back, looking at the assassin coldly. "Oh, that's all
+right," he said. "You show me th' joint--that's all you've got t' do."
+
+The assassin, gesticulating gratitude, led the young man along a dark
+street. Finally he stopped before a little dusty door. He raised his
+hand impressively. "Look-a-here," he said, and there was a thrill of
+deep and ancient wisdom upon his face, "I've brought yeh here, an'
+that's my part, ain't it? If th' place don't suit yeh, yeh needn't git
+mad at me, need yeh? There won't be no bad feelin', will there?"
+
+"No," said the young man.
+
+The assassin waved his arm tragically, and led the march up the steep
+stairway. On the way the young man furnished the assassin with three
+pennies. At the top a man with benevolent spectacles looked at them
+through a hole in a board. He collected their money, wrote some names on
+a register, and speedily was leading the two men along a gloom-shrouded
+corridor.
+
+Shortly after the beginning of this journey the young man felt his liver
+turn white, for from the dark and secret places of the building there
+suddenly came to his nostrils strange and unspeakable odors, that
+assailed him like malignant diseases with wings. They seemed to be from
+human bodies closely packed in dens; the exhalations from a hundred
+pairs of reeking lips; the fumes from a thousand bygone debauches; the
+expression of a thousand present miseries.
+
+A man, naked save for a little snuff-colored undershirt, was parading
+sleepily along the corridor. He rubbed his eyes, and, giving vent to a
+prodigious yawn, demanded to be told the time.
+
+"Half-past one."
+
+The man yawned again. He opened a door, and for a moment his form was
+outlined against a black, opaque interior. To this door came the three
+men, and as it was again opened the unholy odors rushed out like fiends,
+so that the young man was obliged to struggle as against an overpowering
+wind.
+
+It was some time before the youth's eyes were good in the intense gloom
+within, but the man with benevolent spectacles led him skilfully,
+pausing but a moment to deposit the limp assassin upon a cot. He took
+the youth to a cot that lay tranquilly by the window, and showing him a
+tall locker for clothes that stood near the head with the ominous air of
+a tombstone, left him.
+
+The youth sat on his cot and peered about him. There was a gas-jet in a
+distant part of the room, that burned a small flickering orange-hued
+flame. It caused vast masses of tumbled shadows in all parts of the
+place, save where, immediately about it, there was a little grey haze.
+As the young man's eyes became used to the darkness, he could see upon
+the cots that thickly littered the floor the forms of men sprawled out,
+lying in deathlike silence, or heaving and snoring with tremendous
+effort, like stabbed fish.
+
+The youth locked his derby and his shoes in the mummy case near him, and
+then lay down with an old and familiar coat around his shoulders. A
+blanket he handed gingerly, drawing it over part of the coat. The cot
+was covered with leather, and as cold as melting snow. The youth was
+obliged to shiver for some time on this affair, which was like a slab.
+Presently, however, his chill gave him peace, and during this period of
+leisure from it he turned his head to stare at his friend the assassin,
+whom he could dimly discern where he lay sprawled on a cot in the
+abandon of a man filled with drink. He was snoring with incredible
+vigor. His wet hair and beard dimly glistened, and his inflamed nose
+shone with subdued lustre like a red light in a fog.
+
+Within reach of the youth's hand was one who lay with yellow breast and
+shoulders bare to the cold drafts. One arm hung over the side of the
+cot, and the fingers lay full length upon the wet cement floor of the
+room. Beneath the inky brows could be seen the eyes of the man exposed
+by the partly opened lids. To the youth it seemed that he and this
+corpse-like being were exchanging a prolonged stare, and that the other
+threatened with his eyes. He drew back, watching his neighbor from the
+shadows of his blanket edge. The man did not move once through the
+night, but lay in this stillness as of death like a body stretched out
+expectant of the surgeon's knife.
+
+And all through the room could be seen the tawny hues of naked flesh,
+limbs thrust into the darkness, projecting beyond the cots; upreared
+knees, arms hanging long and thin over the cot edges. For the most part
+they were statuesque, carven, dead. With the curious lockers standing
+all about like tombstones, there was a strange effect of a graveyard
+where bodies were merely flung.
+
+Yet occasionally could be seen limbs wildly tossing in fantastic
+nightmare gestures, accompanied by guttural cries, grunts, oaths. And
+there was one fellow off in a gloomy corner, who in his dreams was
+oppressed by some frightful calamity, for of a sudden he began to utter
+long wails that went almost like yells from a hound, echoing wailfully
+and weird through this chill place of tombstones where men lay like the
+dead.
+
+The sound in its high piercing beginnings, that dwindled to final
+melancholy moans, expressed a red and grim tragedy of the unfathomable
+possibilities of the man's dreams. But to the youth these were not
+merely the shrieks of a vision-pierced man: they were an utterance of
+the meaning of the room and its occupants. It was to him the protest of
+the wretch who feels the touch of the imperturbable granite wheels, and
+who then cries with an impersonal eloquence, with a strength not from
+him, giving voice to the wail of a whole section, a class, a people.
+This, weaving into the young man's brain, and mingling with his views of
+the vast and sombre shadows that, like mighty black fingers, curled
+around the naked bodies, made the young man so that he did not sleep,
+but lay carving the biographies for these men from his meagre
+experience. At times the fellow in the corner howled in a writhing agony
+of his imaginations.
+
+Finally a long lance-point of grey light shot through the dusty panes of
+the window. Without, the young man could see roofs drearily white in the
+dawning. The point of light yellowed and grew brighter, until the golden
+rays of the morning sun came in bravely and strong. They touched with
+radiant color the form of a small fat man, who snored in stuttering
+fashion. His round and shiny bald head glowed suddenly with the valor of
+a decoration. He sat up, blinked at the sun, swore fretfully, and pulled
+his blanket over the ornamental splendors of his head.
+
+The youth contentedly watched this rout of the shadows before the bright
+spears of the sun, and presently he slumbered. When he awoke he heard
+the voice of the assassin raised in valiant curses. Putting up his head,
+he perceived his comrade seated on the side of the cot engaged in
+scratching his neck with long finger-nails that rasped like files.
+
+"Hully Jee, dis is a new breed. They've got can-openers on their feet."
+He continued in a violent tirade.
+
+The young man hastily unlocked his closet and took out his shoes and
+hat. As he sat on the side of the cot lacing his shoes, he glanced about
+and saw that daylight had made the room comparatively commonplace and
+uninteresting. The men, whose faces seemed stolid, serene or absent,
+were engaged in dressing, while a great crackle of bantering
+conversation arose.
+
+A few were parading in unconcerned nakedness. Here and there were men of
+brawn, whose skins shone clear and ruddy. They took splendid poses,
+standing massively like chiefs. When they had dressed in their ungainly
+garments there was an extraordinary change. They then showed bumps and
+deficiencies of all kinds.
+
+There were others who exhibited many deformities. Shoulders were
+slanting, humped, pulled this way and pulled that way. And notable among
+these latter men was the little fat man who had refused to allow his
+head to be glorified. His pudgy form, builded like a pear, bustled to
+and fro, while he swore in fishwife fashion. It appeared that some
+article of his apparel had vanished.
+
+The young man attired speedily, and went to his friend the assassin. At
+first the latter looked dazed at the sight of the youth. This face
+seemed to be appealing to him through the cloud wastes of his memory. He
+scratched his neck and reflected. At last he grinned, a broad smile
+gradually spreading until his countenance was a round illumination.
+"Hello, Willie," he cried cheerily.
+
+"Hello," said the young man. "Are yeh ready t' fly?"
+
+"Sure." The assassin tied his shoe carefully with some twine and came
+ambling.
+
+When he reached the street the young man experienced no sudden relief
+from unholy atmospheres. He had forgotten all about them, and had been
+breathing naturally, and with no sensation of discomfort or distress.
+
+He was thinking of these things as he walked along the street, when he
+was suddenly startled by feeling the assassin's hand, trembling with
+excitement, clutching his arm, and when the assassin spoke, his voice
+went into quavers from a supreme agitation.
+
+"I'll be hully, bloomin' blowed if there wasn't a feller with a
+nightshirt on up there in that joint."
+
+The youth was bewildered for a moment, but presently he turned to smile
+indulgently at the assassin's humor.
+
+"Oh, you're a d--d liar," he merely said.
+
+Whereupon the assassin began to gesture extravagantly, and take oath by
+strange gods. He frantically placed himself at the mercy of remarkable
+fates if his tale were not true.
+
+"Yes, he did! I cross m' heart thousan' times!" he protested, and at the
+moment his eyes were large with amazement, his mouth wrinkled in
+unnatural glee.
+
+"Yessir! A nightshirt! A hully white nightshirt!"
+
+"You lie!"
+
+"No, sir! I hope ter die b'fore I kin git anudder ball if there wasn't a
+jay wid a hully, bloomin' white nightshirt!"
+
+His face was filled with the infinite wonder of it. "A hully white
+nightshirt," he continually repeated.
+
+The young man saw the dark entrance to a basement restaurant. There was
+a sign which read "No mystery about our hash"! and there were other age-
+stained and world-battered legends which told him that the place was
+within his means. He stopped before it and spoke to the assassin. "I
+guess I'll git somethin' t' eat."
+
+At this the assassin, for some reason, appeared to be quite embarrassed.
+He gazed at the seductive front of the eating place for a moment. Then
+he started slowly up the street. "Well, good-bye, Willie," he said
+bravely.
+
+For an instant the youth studied the departing figure. Then he called
+out, "Hol' on a minnet." As they came together he spoke in a certain
+fierce way, as if he feared that the other would think him to be
+charitable. "Look-a-here, if yeh wanta git some breakfas' I'll lend yeh
+three cents t' do it with. But say, look-a-here, you've gota git out an'
+hustle. I ain't goin' t' support yeh, or I'll go broke b'fore night. I
+ain't no millionaire."
+
+"I take me oath, Willie," said the assassin earnestly, "th' on'y thing I
+really needs is a ball. Me t'roat feels like a fryin'-pan. But as I
+can't get a ball, why, th' next bes' thing is breakfast, an' if yeh do
+that for me, b'Gawd, I say yeh was th' whitest lad I ever see."
+
+They spent a few moments in dexterous exchanges of phrases, in which
+they each protested that the other was, as the assassin had originally
+said, "a respecter'ble gentlem'n." And they concluded with mutual
+assurances that they were the souls of intelligence and virtue. Then
+they went into the restaurant.
+
+There was a long counter, dimly lighted from hidden sources. Two or
+three men in soiled white aprons rushed here and there.
+
+The youth bought a bowl of coffee for two cents and a roll for one cent.
+The assassin purchased the same. The bowls were webbed with brown seams,
+and the tin spoons wore an air of having emerged from the first pyramid.
+Upon them were black mosslike encrustations of age, and they were bent
+and scarred from the attacks of long-forgotten teeth. But over their
+repast the wanderers waxed warm and mellow. The assassin grew affable as
+the hot mixture went soothingly down his parched throat, and the young
+man felt courage flow in his veins.
+
+Memories began to throng in on the assassin, and he brought forth long
+tales, intricate, incoherent, delivered with a chattering swiftness as
+from an old woman. "--great job out'n Orange. Boss keep yeh hustlin'
+though all time. I was there three days, and then I went an' ask 'im t'
+lend me a dollar. 'G-g-go ter the devil,' he ses, an' I lose me job."
+
+"South no good. Damn niggers work for twenty-five an' thirty cents a
+day. Run white man out. Good grub, though. Easy livin'."
+
+"Yas; useter work little in Toledo, raftin' logs. Make two or three
+dollars er day in the spring. Lived high. Cold as ice, though, in the
+winter."
+
+"I was raised in northern N'York. O-a-ah, yeh jest oughto live there. No
+beer ner whisky, though, way off in the woods. But all th' good hot grub
+yeh can eat. B'Gawd, I hung around there long as I could till th' ol'
+man fired me. 'Git t' hell outa here, yeh wuthless skunk, git t' hell
+outa here, an' go die,' he ses. 'You're a hell of a father,' I ses, 'you
+are,' an' I quit 'im."
+
+As they were passing from the dim eating place, they encountered an old
+man who was trying to steal forth with a tiny package of food, but a
+tall man with an indomitable moustache stood dragon fashion, barring the
+way of escape. They heard the old man raise a plaintive protest. "Ah,
+you always want to know what I take out, and you never see that I
+usually bring a package in here from my place of business."
+
+As the wanderers trudged slowly along Park Row, the assassin began to
+expand and grow blithe. "B'Gawd, we've been livin' like kings," he said,
+smacking appreciative lips.
+
+"Look out, or we'll have t' pay fer it t'night," said the youth with
+gloomy warning.
+
+But the assassin refused to turn his gaze toward the future. He went
+with a limping step, into which he injected a suggestion of lamblike
+gambols. His mouth was wreathed in a red grin.
+
+In the City Hall Park the two wanderers sat down in the little circle of
+benches sanctified by traditions of their class. They huddled in their
+old garments, slumbrously conscious of the march of the hours which for
+them had no meaning.
+
+The people of the street hurrying hither and thither made a blend of
+black figures changing yet frieze-like. They walked in their good
+clothes as upon important missions, giving no gaze to the two wanderers
+seated upon the benches. They expressed to the young man his infinite
+distance from all that he valued. Social position, comfort, the
+pleasures of living, were unconquerable kingdoms. He felt a sudden awe.
+
+And in the background a multitude of buildings, of pitiless hues and
+sternly high, were to him emblematic of a nation forcing its regal head
+into the clouds, throwing no downward glances; in the sublimity of its
+aspirations ignoring the wretches who may flounder at its feet. The roar
+of the city in his ear was to him the confusion of strange tongues,
+babbling heedlessly; it was the clink of coin, the voice if the city's
+hopes which were to him no hopes.
+
+He confessed himself an outcast, and his eyes from under the lowered rim
+of his hat began to glance guiltily, wearing the criminal expression
+that comes with certain convictions.
+
+
+
+
+THE DUEL THAT WAS NOT FOUGHT
+
+
+Patsy Tulligan was not as wise as seven owls, but his courage could
+throw a shadow as long as the steeple of a cathedral. There were men on
+Cherry Street who had whipped him five times, but they all knew that
+Patsy would be as ready for the sixth time as if nothing had happened.
+
+Once he and two friends had been away up on Eighth Avenue, far out of
+their country, and upon their return journey that evening they stopped
+frequently in saloons until they were as independent of their
+surroundings as eagles, and cared much less about thirty days on
+Blackwell's.
+
+On Lower Sixth Avenue they paused in a saloon where there was a good
+deal of lamp-glare and polished wood to be seen from the outside, and
+within, the mellow light shone on much furbished brass and more polished
+wood. It was a better saloon than they were in the habit of seeing, but
+they did not mind it. They sat down at one of the little tables that
+were in a row parallel to the bar and ordered beer. They blinked
+stolidly at the decorations, the bartender, and the other customers.
+When anything transpired they discussed it with dazzling frankness, and
+what they said of it was as free as air to the other people in the
+place.
+
+At midnight there were few people in the saloon. Patsy and his friends
+still sat drinking. Two well-dressed men were at another table, smoking
+cigars slowly and swinging back in their chairs. They occupied
+themselves with themselves in the usual manner, never betraying by a
+wink of an eyelid that they knew that other folk existed. At another
+table directly behind Patsy and his companions was a slim little Cuban,
+with miraculously small feet and hands, and with a youthful touch of
+down upon his lip. As he lifted his cigarette from time to time his
+little finger was bended in dainty fashion, and there was a green flash
+when a huge emerald ring caught the light. The bartender came often with
+his little brass tray. Occasionally Patsy and his two friends
+quarrelled.
+
+Once this little Cuban happened to make some slight noise and Patsy
+turned his head to observe him. Then Patsy made a careless and rather
+loud comment to his two friends. He used a word which is no more than
+passing the time of day down in Cherry Street, but to the Cuban it was a
+dagger-point. There was a harsh scraping sound as a chair was pushed
+swiftly back.
+
+The little Cuban was upon his feet. His eyes were shining with a rage
+that flashed there like sparks as he glared at Patsy. His olive face had
+turned a shade of grey from his anger. Withal his chest was thrust out
+in portentous dignity, and his hand, still grasping his wine-glass, was
+cool and steady, the little finger still bended, the great emerald
+gleaming upon it. The others, motionless, stared at him.
+
+"Sir," he began ceremoniously. He spoke gravely and in a slow way, his
+tone coming in a marvel of self-possessed cadences from between those
+lips which quivered with wrath. "You have insult me. You are a dog, a
+hound, a cur. I spit upon you. I must have some of your blood."
+
+Patsy looked at him over his shoulder.
+
+"What's th' matter wi' che?" he demanded. He did not quite understand
+the words of this little man who glared at him steadily, but he knew
+that it was something about fighting. He snarled with the readiness of
+his class and heaved his shoulders contemptuously. "Ah, what's eatin'
+yeh? Take a walk! You hain't got nothin' t' do with me, have yeh? Well,
+den, go sit on yerself."
+
+And his companions leaned back valorously in their chairs, and
+scrutinized this slim young fellow who was addressing Patsy.
+
+"What's de little Dago chewin' about?"
+
+"He wants t' scrap!"
+
+"What!"
+
+The Cuban listened with apparent composure. It was only when they
+laughed that his body cringed as if he was receiving lashes. Presently
+he put down his glass and walked over to their table. He proceeded
+always with the most impressive deliberation.
+
+"Sir," he began again. "You have insult me. I must have s-s-satisfac-
+shone. I must have your body upon the point of my sword. In my country
+you would already be dead. I must have s-s-satisfac-shone."
+
+Patsy had looked at the Cuban with a trifle of bewilderment. But at last
+his face began to grow dark with belligerency, his mouth curved in that
+wide sneer with which he would confront an angel of darkness. He arose
+suddenly in his seat and came towards the little Cuban. He was going to
+be impressive too.
+
+"Say, young feller, if yeh go shootin' off yer face at me, I'll wipe d'
+joint wid yeh. What'cher gaffin' about, hey? Are yeh givin' me er jolly?
+Say, if yeh pick me up fer a cinch, I'll fool yeh. Dat's what! Don't
+take me fer no dead easy mug." And as he glowered at the little Cuban,
+he ended his oration with one eloquent word, "Nit!"
+
+The bartender nervously polished his bar with a towel, and kept his eyes
+fastened upon the men. Occasionally he became transfixed with interest,
+leaning forward with one hand upon the edge of the bar and the other
+holding the towel grabbed in a lump, as if he had been turned into
+bronze when in the very act of polishing.
+
+The Cuban did not move when Patsy came toward him and delivered his
+oration. At its conclusion he turned his livid face toward where, above
+him, Patsy was swaggering and heaving his shoulders in a consummate
+display of bravery and readiness. The Cuban, in his clear, tense tones,
+spoke one word. It was the bitter insult. It seemed fairly to spin from
+his lips and crackle in the air like breaking glass.
+
+Every man save the little Cuban made an electric movement. Patsy roared
+a black oath and thrust himself forward until he towered almost directly
+above the other man. His fists were doubled into knots of bone and hard
+flesh. The Cuban had raised a steady finger.
+
+"If you touch me wis your hand, I will keel you."
+
+The two well-dressed men had come swiftly, uttering protesting cries.
+They suddenly intervened in this second of time in which Patsy had
+sprung forward and the Cuban had uttered his threat. The four men were
+now a tossing, arguing; violent group, one well-dressed man lecturing
+the Cuban, and the other holding off Patsy, who was now wild with rage,
+loudly repeating the Cuban's threat, and maneuvering and struggling to
+get at him for revenge's sake.
+
+The bartender, feverishly scouring away with his towel, and at times
+pacing to and fro with nervous and excited tread, shouted out--
+
+"Say, for heaven's sake, don't fight in here. If yeh wanta fight, go out
+in the street and fight all yeh please. But don't fight in here."
+
+Patsy knew one only thing, and this he kept repeating:
+
+"Well, he wants t' scrap! I didn't begin dis! He wants t' scrap."
+
+The well-dressed man confronting him continually replied--
+
+"Oh, well, now, look here, he's only a lad. He don't know what he's
+doing. He's crazy mad. You wouldn't slug a kid like that."
+
+Patsy and his aroused companions, who cursed and growled, were
+persistent with their argument. "Well, he wants t' scrap!" The whole
+affair was as plain as daylight when one saw this great fact. The
+interference and intolerable discussion brought the three of them
+forward, battleful and fierce.
+
+"What's eatin' you, anyhow?" they demanded. "Dis ain't your business, is
+it? What business you got shootin' off your face?"
+
+The other peacemaker was trying to restrain the little Cuban, who had
+grown shrill and violent.
+
+"If he touch me wis his hand I will keel him. We must fight like
+gentlemen or else I keel him when he touch me wis his hand."
+
+The man who was fending off Patsy comprehended these sentences that were
+screamed behind his back, and he explained to Patsy.
+
+"But he wants to fight you with swords. With swords, you know."
+
+The Cuban, dodging around the peacemakers, yelled in Patsy's face--
+
+"Ah, if I could get you before me wis my sword! Ah! Ah! A-a-ah!" Patsy
+made a furious blow with a swift fist, but the peacemakers bucked
+against his body suddenly like football players.
+
+Patsy was greatly puzzled. He continued doggedly to try to get near
+enough to the Cuban to punch him. To these attempts the Cuban replied
+savagely--
+
+"If you touch me wis your hand, I will cut your heart in two piece."
+
+At last Patsy said--"Well, if he's so dead stuck on fightin' wid swords,
+I'll fight 'im. Soitenly! I'll fight 'im." All this palaver had
+evidently tired him, and he now puffed out his lips with the air of a
+man who is willing to submit to any conditions if he can only bring on
+the row soon enough. He swaggered, "I'll fight 'im wid swords. Let 'im
+bring on his swords, an' I'll fight 'im 'til he's ready t' quit."
+
+The two well-dressed men grinned. "Why, look here," they said to Patsy,
+"he'd punch you full of holes. Why he's a fencer. You can't fight him
+with swords. He'd kill you in 'bout a minute."
+
+"Well, I'll giv' 'im a go at it, anyhow," said Patsy, stouthearted and
+resolute. "I'll giv' 'im a go at it, anyhow, an' I'll stay wid 'im as
+long as I kin."
+
+As for the Cuban, his lithe body was quivering in an ecstasy of the
+muscles. His face radiant with a savage joy, he fastened his glance upon
+Patsy, his eyes gleaming with a gloating, murderous light. A most
+unspeakable, animal-like rage was in his expression.
+
+"Ah! ah! He will fight me! Ah!" He bended unconsciously in the posture
+of a fencer. He had all the quick, springy movements of a skilful
+swordsman. "Ah, the b-r-r-rute! The b-r-r-rute! I will stick him like a
+pig!"
+
+The two peacemakers, still grinning broadly, were having a great time
+with Patsy.
+
+"Why, you infernal idiot, this man would slice you all up. You better
+jump off the bridge if you want to commit suicide. You wouldn't stand a
+ghost of a chance to live ten seconds."
+
+Patsy was as unshaken as granite. "Well, if he wants t' fight wid
+swords, he'll get it. I'll giv' 'im a go at it, anyhow."
+
+One man said--"Well, have you got a sword? Do you know what a sword is?
+Have you got a sword?"
+
+"No, I ain't got none," said Patsy honestly, "but I kin git one." Then
+he added valiantly--"An' quick, too."
+
+The two men laughed. "Why, can't you understand it would be sure death
+to fight a sword duel with this fellow?"
+
+"Dat's all right! See? I know me own business. If he wants t' fight one
+of dees d--n duels, I'm in it, understan'"
+
+"Have you ever fought one, you fool?"
+
+"No, I ain't. But I will fight one, dough! I ain't no muff. If he wants
+t' fight a duel, by Gawd, I'm wid 'im! D'yeh understan' dat!" Patsy
+cocked his hat and swaggered. He was getting very serious.
+
+The little Cuban burst out--"Ah, come on, sirs: come on! We can take
+cab. Ah, you big cow, I will stick you, I will stick you. Ah, you will
+look very beautiful, very beautiful. Ah, come on, sirs. We will stop at
+hotel--my hotel. I there have weapons."
+
+"Yeh will, will yeh? Yeh bloomin' little black Dago!" cried Patsy in
+hoarse and maddened reply to the personal part of the Cuban's speech. He
+stepped forward. "Git yer d--n swords," he commanded. "Git yer swords.
+Git 'em quick! I'll fight wi' che! I'll fight wid anyt'ing, too! See?
+I'll fight yeh wid a knife an' fork if yeh say so! I'll fight yer
+standin' up er sittin' down!" Patsy delivered this intense oration with
+sweeping, intensely emphatic gestures, his hands stretched out
+eloquently, his jaw thrust forward, his eyes glaring.
+
+"Ah!" cried the little Cuban joyously. "Ah, you are in very pretty
+temper. Ah, how I will cut your heart in two piece, my dear, d-e-a-r
+friend." His eyes, too, shone like carbuncles, with a swift, changing
+glitter, always fastened upon Patsy's face.
+
+The two peacemakers were perspiring and in despair. One of them blurted
+out--
+
+"Well, I'll be blamed if this ain't the most ridiculous thing I ever
+saw."
+
+The other said--"For ten dollars I'd be tempted to let these two
+infernal blockheads have their duel."
+
+Patsy was strutting to and fro, and conferring grandly with his friends.
+
+"He took me for a muff. He t'ought he was goin' t' bluff me out, talkin'
+'bout swords. He'll get fooled." He addressed the Cuban--"You're a fine
+little dirty picter of a scrapper, ain't che? I'll chew yez up, dat's
+what I will!"
+
+There began then some rapid action. The patience of well-dressed men is
+not an eternal thing. It began to look as if it would at last be a fight
+with six corners to it. The faces of the men were shining red with
+anger. They jostled each other defiantly, and almost every one blazed
+out at three or four of the others. The bartender had given up
+protesting. He swore for a time and banged his glasses. Then he jumped
+the bar and ran out of the saloon, cursing sullenly.
+
+When he came back with a policeman, Patsy and the Cuban were preparing
+to depart together. Patsy was delivering his last oration--
+
+"I'll fight yer wid swords! Sure I will! Come ahead, Dago! I'll fight
+yeh anywheres wid anyt'ing! We'll have a large, juicy scrap, an' don't
+yeh forgit dat! I'm right wid yez. I ain't no muff! I scrap with a man
+jest as soon as he ses scrap, an' if yeh wanta scrap, I'm yer kitten.
+Understan' dat?"
+
+The policeman said sharply--"Come, now; what's all this?" He had a
+distinctly business air.
+
+The little Cuban stepped forward calmly. "It is none of your business."
+
+The policeman flushed to his ears. "What?"
+
+One well-dressed man touched the other on the sleeve. "Here's the time
+to skip," he whispered. They halted a block away from the saloon and
+watched the policeman pull the Cuban through the door. There was a
+minute of scuffle on the sidewalk, and into this deserted street at
+midnight fifty people appeared at once as if from the sky to watch it.
+
+At last the three Cherry Hill men came from the saloon, and swaggered
+with all their old valor toward the peacemakers.
+
+"Ah," said Patsy to them, "he was so hot talkin' about this duel
+business, but I would a-given 'im a great scrap, an' don't yeh forgit
+it."
+
+For Patsy was not as wise as seven owls, but his courage could throw a
+shadow as long as the steeple of a cathedral.
+
+
+
+
+A DESERTION
+
+
+The yellow gaslight that came with an effect of difficulty through the
+dust-stained windows on either side of the door gave strange hues to the
+faces and forms of the three women who stood gabbling in the hallway of
+the tenement. They made rapid gestures, and in the background their
+enormous shadows mingled in terrific conflict.
+
+"Aye, she ain't so good as he thinks she is, I'll bet. He can watch over
+'er an' take care of 'er all he pleases, but when she wants t' fool 'im,
+she'll fool 'im. An' how does he know she ain't foolin' im' now?"
+
+"Oh, he thinks he's keepin' 'er from goin' t' th' bad, he does. Oh, yes.
+He ses she's too purty t' let run round alone. Too purty! Huh! My
+Sadie--"
+
+"Well, he keeps a clost watch on 'er, you bet. On'y las' week, she met
+my boy Tim on th' stairs, an' Tim hadn't said two words to 'er b'fore
+th' ol' man begin to holler. 'Dorter, dorter, come here, come here!'"
+
+At this moment a young girl entered from the street, and it was evident
+from the injured expression suddenly assumed by the three gossipers that
+she had been the object of their discussion. She passed them with a
+slight nod, and they swung about into a row to stare after her.
+
+On her way up the long flights the girl unfastened her veil. One could
+then clearly see the beauty of her eyes, but there was in them a certain
+furtiveness that came near to marring the effects. It was a peculiar
+fixture of gaze, brought from the street, as of one who there saw a
+succession of passing dangers with menaces aligned at every corner.
+
+On the top floor, she pushed open a door and then paused on the
+threshold, confronting an interior that appeared black and flat like a
+curtain. Perhaps some girlish idea of hobgoblins assailed her then, for
+she called in a little breathless voice, "Daddie!"
+
+There was no reply. The fire in the cooking-stove in the room crackled
+at spasmodic intervals. One lid was misplaced, and the girl could now
+see that this fact created a little flushed crescent upon the ceiling.
+Also, a series of tiny windows in the stove caused patches of red upon
+the floor. Otherwise, the room was heavily draped with shadows.
+
+The girl called again, "Daddie!"
+
+Yet there was no reply.
+
+"Oh, Daddie!"
+
+Presently she laughed as one familiar with the humors of an old man.
+"Oh, I guess yer cussin' mad about yer supper, Dad," she said, and she
+almost entered the room, but suddenly faltered, overcome by a feminine
+instinct to fly from this black interior, peopled with imagined dangers.
+
+Again she called, "Daddie!" Her voice had an accent of appeal. It was as
+if she knew she was foolish but yet felt obliged to insist upon being
+reassured. "Oh, Daddie!"
+
+Of a sudden a cry of relief, a feminine announcement that the stars
+still hung, burst from her. For, according to some mystic process, the
+smoldering coals of the fire went aflame with sudden, fierce brilliance,
+splashing parts of the walls, the floor, the crude furniture, with a hue
+of blood-red. And in the light of this dramatic outburst of light, the
+girl saw her father seated at a table with his back turned toward her.
+
+She entered the room, then, with an aggrieved air, her logic evidently
+concluding that somebody was to blame for her nervous fright. "Oh, yer
+on'y sulkin' 'bout yer supper. I thought mebbe ye'd gone somewheres."
+
+Her father made no reply. She went over to a shelf in the corner, and,
+taking a little lamp, she lit it and put it where it would give her
+light as she took off her hat and jacket in front of the tiny mirror.
+Presently she began to bustle among the cooking utensils that were
+crowded into the sink, and as she worked she rattled talk at her father,
+apparently disdaining his mood.
+
+"I'd 'a' come home earlier t'night, Dad, on'y that fly foreman, he kep'
+me in th' shop 'til half-past six. What a fool! He came t' me, yeh know,
+an' he ses, 'Nell, I wanta give yeh some brotherly advice.' Oh, I know
+him an' his brotherly advice. 'I wanta give yeh some brotherly advice.
+Yer too purty, Nell,' he ses, 't' be workin' in this shop an' paradin'
+through the streets alone, without somebody t' give yeh good brotherly
+advice, an' I wanta warn yeh, Nell. I'm a bad man, but I ain't as bad as
+some, an' I wanta warn yeh.' 'Oh, g'long 'bout yer business,' I ses. I
+know 'im. He's like all of 'em, on'y he's a little slyer. I know 'im.
+'You g'long 'bout yer business,' I ses. Well, he ses after a while that
+he guessed some evenin' he'd come up an' see me. 'Oh, yeh will,' I ses,
+'yeh will? Well, you jest let my ol' man ketch yeh comin' foolin' 'round
+our place. Yeh'll wish yeh went t' some other girl t' give brotherly
+advice.' 'What th' 'ell do I care fer yer father?' he ses. 'What's he t'
+me?' 'If he throws yeh downstairs, yeh'll care for 'im,' I ses. 'Well,'
+he ses, 'I'll come when 'e ain't in, b' Gawd, I'll come when 'e ain't
+in.' 'Oh, he's allus in when it means takin' care 'o me,' I ses. 'Don't
+yeh fergit it, either. When it comes t' takin' care o' his dorter, he's
+right on deck every single possible time.'"
+
+After a time, she turned and addressed cheery words to the old man.
+"Hurry up th' fire, Daddie! We'll have supper pretty soon."
+
+But still her father was silent, and his form in its sullen posture was
+motionless.
+
+At this, the girl seemed to see the need of the inauguration of a
+feminine war against a man out of temper. She approached him breathing
+soft, coaxing syllables.
+
+"Daddie! Oh, Daddie! O--o--oh, Daddie!"
+
+It was apparent from a subtle quality of valor in her tones that this
+manner of onslaught upon his moods had usually been successful, but to-
+night it had no quick effect. The words, coming from her lips, were like
+the refrain of an old ballad, but the man remained stolid.
+
+"Daddie! My Daddie! Oh, Daddie, are yeh mad at me, really--truly mad at
+me!"
+
+She touched him lightly upon the arm. Should he have turned then he
+would have seen the fresh, laughing face, with dew-sparkling eyes, close
+to his own.
+
+"Oh, Daddie! My Daddie! Pretty Daddie!"
+
+She stole her arm about his neck, and then slowly bended her face toward
+his. It was the action of a queen who knows that she reigns
+notwithstanding irritations, trials, tempests.
+
+But suddenly, from this position, she leaped backward with the mad
+energy of a frightened colt. Her face was in this instant turned to a
+grey, featureless thing of horror. A yell, wild and hoarse as a brute-
+cry, burst from her. "Daddie!" She flung herself to a place near the
+door, where she remained, crouching, her eyes staring at the motionless
+figure, spattered by the quivering flashes from the fire. Her arms
+extended, and her frantic fingers at once besought and repelled. There
+was in them an expression of eagerness to caress and an expression of
+the most intense loathing. And the girl's hair that had been a splendor,
+was in these moments changed to a disordered mass that hung and swayed
+in witchlike fashion.
+
+Again, a terrible cry burst from her. It was more than the shriek of
+agony--it was directed, personal, addressed to him in the chair, the
+first word of a tragic conversation with the dead.
+
+It seemed that when she had put her arm about its neck, she had jostled
+the corpse in such a way that now she and it were face to face. The
+attitude expressed an intention of arising from the table. The eyes,
+fixed upon hers, were filled with an unspeakable hatred.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The cries of the girl aroused thunders in the tenement. There was a loud
+slamming of doors, and presently there was a roar of feet upon the
+boards of the stairway. Voices rang out sharply.
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"What's th' matter?"
+
+"He's killin' her!"
+
+"Slug 'im with anythin' yeh kin lay hold of, Jack!"
+
+But over all this came the shrill, shrewish tones of a woman. "Ah, th'
+damned ol' fool, he's drivin' 'er inteh th' street--that's what he's
+doin'. He's drivin' 'er inteh th' street."
+
+
+
+
+A DARK-BROWN DOG
+
+
+A child was standing on a street-corner. He leaned with one shoulder
+against a high board fence and swayed the other to and fro, the while
+kicking carelessly at the gravel.
+
+Sunshine beat upon the cobbles, and a lazy summer wind raised yellow
+dust which trailed in clouds down the avenue. Clattering trucks moved
+with indistinctness through it. The child stood dreamily gazing.
+
+After a time, a little dark-brown dog came trotting with an intent air
+down the sidewalk. A short rope was dragging from his neck. Occasionally
+he trod upon the end of it and stumbled.
+
+He stopped opposite the child, and the two regarded each other. The dog
+hesitated for a moment, but presently he made some little advances with
+his tail. The child put out his hand and called him. In an apologetic
+manner the dog came close, and the two had an interchange of friendly
+pattings and waggles. The dog became more enthusiastic with each moment
+of the interview, until with his gleeful caperings he threatened to
+overturn the child. Whereupon the child lifted his hand and struck the
+dog a blow upon the head.
+
+This thing seemed to overpower and astonish the little dark-brown dog,
+and wounded him to the heart. He sank down in despair at the child's
+feet. When the blow was repeated, together with an admonition in
+childish sentences, he turned over upon his back, and held his paws in a
+peculiar manner. At the same time with his ears and his eyes he offered
+a small prayer to the child.
+
+He looked so comical on his back, and holding his paws peculiarly, that
+the child was greatly amused and gave him little taps repeatedly, to
+keep him so. But the little dark-brown dog took this chastisement in the
+most serious way and no doubt considered that he had committed some
+grave crime, for he wriggled contritely and showed his repentance in
+every way that was in his power. He pleaded with the child and
+petitioned him, and offered more prayers.
+
+At last the child grew weary of this amusement and turned toward home.
+The dog was praying at the time. He lay on his back and turned his eyes
+upon the retreating form.
+
+Presently he struggled to his feet and started after the child. The
+latter wandered in a perfunctory way toward his home, stopping at times
+to investigate various matters. During one of these pauses he discovered
+the little dark-brown dog who was following him with the air of a
+footpad.
+
+The child beat his pursuer with a small stick he had found. The dog lay
+down and prayed until the child had finished, and resumed his journey.
+Then he scrambled erect and took up the pursuit again.
+
+On the way to his home the child turned many times and beat the dog,
+proclaiming with childish gestures that he held him in contempt as an
+unimportant dog, with no value save for a moment. For being this quality
+of animal the dog apologized and eloquently expressed regret, but he
+continued stealthily to follow the child. His manner grew so very guilty
+that he slunk like an assassin.
+
+When the child reached his doorstep, the dog was industriously ambling a
+few yards in the rear. He became so agitated with shame when he again
+confronted the child that he forgot the dragging rope. He tripped upon
+it and fell forward.
+
+The child sat down on the step and the two had another interview. During
+it the dog greatly exerted himself to please the child. He performed a
+few gambols with such abandon that the child suddenly saw him to be a
+valuable thing. He made a swift, avaricious charge and seized the rope.
+
+He dragged his captive into a hall and up many long stairways in a dark
+tenement. The dog made willing efforts, but he could not hobble very
+skilfully up the stairs because he was very small and soft, and at last
+the pace of the engrossed child grew so energetic that the dog became
+panic-stricken. In his mind he was being dragged toward a grim unknown.
+His eyes grew wild with the terror of it. He began to wiggle his head
+frantically and to brace his legs.
+
+The child redoubled his exertions. They had a battle on the stairs. The
+child was victorious because he was completely absorbed in his purpose,
+and because the dog was very small. He dragged his acquirement to the
+door of his home, and finally with triumph across the threshold.
+
+No one was in. The child sat down on the floor and made overtures to the
+dog. These the dog instantly accepted. He beamed with affection upon his
+new friend. In a short time they were firm and abiding comrades.
+
+When the child's family appeared, they made a great row. The dog was
+examined and commented upon and called names. Scorn was leveled at him
+from all eyes, so that he became much embarrassed and drooped like a
+scorched plant. But the child went sturdily to the center of the floor,
+and, at the top of his voice, championed the dog. It happened that he
+was roaring protestations, with his arms clasped about the dog's neck,
+when the father of the family came in from work.
+
+The parent demanded to know what the blazes they were making the kid
+howl for. It was explained in many words that the infernal kid wanted to
+introduce a disreputable dog into the family.
+
+A family council was held. On this depended the dog's fate, but he in no
+way heeded, being busily engaged in chewing the end of the child's
+dress.
+
+The affair was quickly ended. The father of the family, it appears, was
+in a particularly savage temper that evening, and when he perceived that
+it would amaze and anger everybody if such a dog were allowed to remain,
+he decided that it should be so. The child, crying softly, took his
+friend off to a retired part of the room to hobnob with him, while the
+father quelled a fierce rebellion of his wife. So it came to pass that
+the dog was a member of the household.
+
+He and the child were associated together at all times save when the
+child slept. The child became a guardian and a friend. If the large folk
+kicked the dog and threw things at him, the child made loud and violent
+objections. Once when the child had run, protesting loudly, with tears
+raining down his face and his arms outstretched, to protect his friend,
+he had been struck in the head with a very large saucepan from the hand
+of his father, enraged at some seeming lack of courtesy in the dog. Ever
+after, the family were careful how they threw things at the dog.
+Moreover, the latter grew very skilful in avoiding missiles and feet. In
+a small room containing a stove, a table, a bureau and some chairs, he
+would display strategic ability of a high order, dodging, feinting and
+scuttling about among the furniture. He could force three or four people
+armed with brooms, sticks and handfuls of coal, to use all their
+ingenuity to get in a blow. And even when they did, it was seldom that
+they could do him a serious injury or leave any imprint.
+
+But when the child was present these scenes did not occur. It came to be
+recognized that if the dog was molested, the child would burst into
+sobs, and as the child, when started, was very riotous and practically
+unquenchable, the dog had therein a safeguard.
+
+However, the child could not always be near. At night, when he was
+asleep, his dark-brown friend would raise from some black corner a wild,
+wailful cry, a song of infinite loneliness and despair, that would go
+shuddering and sobbing among the buildings of the block and cause people
+to swear. At these times the singer would often be chased all over the
+kitchen and hit with a great variety of articles.
+
+Sometimes, too, the child himself used to beat the dog, although it is
+not known that he ever had what truly could be called a just cause. The
+dog always accepted these thrashings with an air of admitted guilt. He
+was too much of a dog to try to look to be a martyr or to plot revenge.
+He received the blows with deep humility, and furthermore he forgave his
+friend the moment the child had finished, and was ready to caress the
+child's hand with his little red tongue.
+
+When misfortune came upon the child, and his troubles overwhelmed him,
+he would often crawl under the table and lay his small distressed head
+on the dog's back. The dog was ever sympathetic. It is not to be
+supposed that at such times he took occasion to refer to the unjust
+beatings his friend, when provoked, had administered to him.
+
+He did not achieve any notable degree of intimacy with the other members
+of the family. He had no confidence in them, and the fear that he would
+express at their casual approach often exasperated them exceedingly.
+They used to gain a certain satisfaction in underfeeding him, but
+finally his friend the child grew to watch the matter with some care,
+and when he forgot it, the dog was often successful in secret for
+himself.
+
+So the dog prospered. He developed a large bark, which came wondrously
+from such a small rug of a dog. He ceased to howl persistently at night.
+Sometimes, indeed, in his sleep, he would utter little yells, as from
+pain, but that occurred, no doubt, when in his dreams he encountered
+huge flaming dogs who threatened him direfully.
+
+His devotion to the child grew until it was a sublime thing. He wagged
+at his approach; he sank down in despair at his departure. He could
+detect the sound of the child's step among all the noises of the
+neighborhood. It was like a calling voice to him.
+
+The scene of their companionship was a kingdom governed by this terrible
+potentate, the child; but neither criticism nor rebellion ever lived for
+an instant in the heart of the one subject. Down in the mystic, hidden
+fields of his little dog-soul bloomed flowers of love and fidelity and
+perfect faith.
+
+The child was in the habit of going on many expeditions to observe
+strange things in the vicinity. On these occasions his friend usually
+jogged aimfully along behind. Perhaps, though, he went ahead. This
+necessitated his turning around every quarter-minute to make sure the
+child was coming. He was filled with a large idea of the importance of
+these journeys. He would carry himself with such an air! He was proud to
+be the retainer of so great a monarch.
+
+One day, however, the father of the family got quite exceptionally
+drunk. He came home and held carnival with the cooking utensils, the
+furniture and his wife. He was in the midst of this recreation when the
+child, followed by the dark-brown dog, entered the room. They were
+returning from their voyages.
+
+The child's practised eye instantly noted his father's state. He dived
+under the table, where experience had taught him was a rather safe
+place. The dog, lacking skill in such matters, was, of course, unaware
+of the true condition of affairs. He looked with interested eyes at his
+friend's sudden dive. He interpreted it to mean: Joyous gambol. He
+started to patter across the floor to join him. He was the picture of a
+little dark-brown dog en route to a friend.
+
+The head of the family saw him at this moment. He gave a huge howl of
+joy, and knocked the dog down with a heavy coffee-pot. The dog, yelling
+in supreme astonishment and fear, writhed to his feet and ran for cover.
+The man kicked out with a ponderous foot. It caused the dog to swerve as
+if caught in a tide. A second blow of the coffee-pot laid him upon the
+floor.
+
+Here the child, uttering loud cries, came valiantly forth like a knight.
+The father of the family paid no attention to these calls of the child,
+but advanced with glee upon the dog. Upon being knocked down twice in
+swift succession, the latter apparently gave up all hope of escape. He
+rolled over on his back and held his paws in a peculiar manner. At the
+same time with his eyes and his ears he offered up a small prayer.
+
+But the father was in a mood for having fun, and it occurred to him that
+it would be a fine thing to throw the dog out of the window. So he
+reached down and, grabbing the animal by a leg, lifted him, squirming,
+up. He swung him two or three times hilariously about his head, and then
+flung him with great accuracy through the window.
+
+The soaring dog created a surprise in the block. A woman watering plants
+in an opposite window gave an involuntary shout and dropped a flower-
+pot. A man in another window leaned perilously out to watch the flight
+of the dog. A woman who had been hanging out clothes in a yard began to
+caper wildly. Her mouth was filled with clothes-pins, but her arms gave
+vent to a sort of exclamation. In appearance she was like a gagged
+prisoner. Children ran whooping.
+
+The dark-brown body crashed in a heap on the roof of a shed five stories
+below. From thence it rolled to the pavement of an alleyway.
+
+The child in the room far above burst into a long, dirge-like cry, and
+toddled hastily out of the room. It took him a long time to reach the
+alley, because his size compelled him to go downstairs backward, one
+step at a time, and holding with both hands to the step above.
+
+When they came for him later, they found him seated by the body of his
+dark-brown friend.
+
+
+
+
+THE PACE OF YOUTH
+
+
+I
+
+Stimson stood in a corner and glowered. He was a fierce man and had
+indomitable whiskers, albeit he was very small.
+
+"That young tarrier," he whispered to himself. "He wants to quit makin'
+eyes at Lizzie. This is too much of a good thing. First thing you know,
+he'll get fired."
+
+His brow creased in a frown, he strode over to the huge open doors and
+looked at a sign. "Stimson's Mammoth Merry-Go-Round," it read, and the
+glory of it was great. Stimson stood and contemplated the sign. It was
+an enormous affair; the letters were as large as men. The glow of it,
+the grandeur of it was very apparent to Stimson. At the end of his
+contemplation, he shook his head thoughtfully, determinedly. "No, no,"
+he muttered. "This is too much of a good thing. First thing you know,
+he'll get fired."
+
+A soft booming sound of surf, mingled with the cries of bathers, came
+from the beach. There was a vista of sand and sky and sea that drew to a
+mystic point far away in the northward. In the mighty angle, a girl in a
+red dress was crawling slowly like some kind of a spider on the fabric
+of nature. A few flags hung lazily above where the bathhouses were
+marshalled in compact squares. Upon the edge of the sea stood a ship
+with its shadowy sails painted dimly upon the sky, and high overhead in
+the still, sun-shot air a great hawk swung and drifted slowly.
+
+Within the Merry-Go-Round there was a whirling circle of ornamental
+lions, giraffes, camels, ponies, goats, glittering with varnish and
+metal that caught swift reflections from windows high above them. With
+stiff wooden legs, they swept on in a never-ending race, while a great
+orchestrion clamored in wild speed. The summer sunlight sprinkled its
+gold upon the garnet canopies carried by the tireless racers and upon
+all the devices of decoration that made Stimson's machine magnificent
+and famous. A host of laughing children bestrode the animals, bending
+forward like charging cavalrymen, and shaking reins and whooping in
+glee. At intervals they leaned out perilously to clutch at iron rings
+that were tendered to them by a long wooden arm. At the intense moment
+before the swift grab for the rings one could see their little nervous
+bodies quiver with eagerness; the laughter rang shrill and excited. Down
+in the long rows of benches, crowds of people sat watching the game,
+while occasionally a father might arise and go near to shout
+encouragement, cautionary commands, or applause at his flying offspring.
+Frequently mothers called out: "Be careful, Georgie!" The orchestrion
+bellowed and thundered on its platform, filling the ears with its long
+monotonous song. Over in a corner, a man in a white apron and behind a
+counter roared above the tumult: "Popcorn! Popcorn!"
+
+A young man stood upon a small, raised platform, erected in a manner of
+a pulpit, and just without the line of the circling figures. It was his
+duty to manipulate the wooden arm and affix the rings. When all were
+gone into the hands of the triumphant children, he held forth a basket,
+into which they returned all save the coveted brass one, which meant
+another ride free and made the holder very illustrious. The young man
+stood all day upon his narrow platform, affixing rings or holding forth
+the basket. He was a sort of general squire in these lists of childhood.
+He was very busy.
+
+And yet Stimson, the astute, had noticed that the young man frequently
+found time to twist about on his platform and smile at a girl who shyly
+sold tickets behind a silvered netting. This, indeed, was the great
+reason of Stimson's glowering. The young man upon the raised platform
+had no manner of license to smile at the girl behind the silvered
+netting. It was a most gigantic insolence. Stimson was amazed at it. "By
+Jiminy," he said to himself again, "that fellow is smiling at my
+daughter." Even in this tone of great wrath it could be discerned that
+Stimson was filled with wonder that any youth should dare smile at the
+daughter in the presence of the august father.
+
+Often the dark-eyed girl peered between the shining wires, and, upon
+being detected by the young man, she usually turned her head quickly to
+prove to him that she was not interested. At other times, however, her
+eyes seemed filled with a tender fear lest he should fall from that
+exceedingly dangerous platform. As for the young man, it was plain that
+these glances filled him with valor, and he stood carelessly upon his
+perch, as if he deemed it of no consequence that he might fall from it.
+In all the complexities of his daily life and duties he found
+opportunity to gaze ardently at the vision behind the netting.
+
+This silent courtship was conducted over the heads of the crowd who
+thronged about the bright machine. The swift eloquent glances of the
+young man went noiselessly and unseen with their message. There had
+finally become established between the two in this manner a subtle
+understanding and companionship. They communicated accurately all that
+they felt. The boy told his love, his reverence, his hope in the changes
+of the future. The girl told him that she loved him, and she did not
+love him, that she did not know if she loved him. Sometimes a little
+sign, saying "cashier" in gold letters, and hanging upon the silvered
+netting, got directly in range and interfered with the tender message.
+
+The love affair had not continued without anger, unhappiness, despair.
+The girl had once smiled brightly upon a youth who came to buy some
+tickets for his little sister, and the young man upon the platform,
+observing this smile, had been filled with gloomy rage. He stood like a
+dark statue of vengeance upon his pedestal and thrust out the basket to
+the children with a gesture that was full of scorn for their hollow
+happiness, for their insecure and temporary joy. For five hours he did
+not once look at the girl when she was looking at him. He was going to
+crush her with his indifference; he was going to demonstrate that he had
+never been serious. However, when he narrowly observed her in secret he
+discovered that she seemed more blythe than was usual with her. When he
+found that his apparent indifference had not crushed her he suffered
+greatly. She did not love him, he concluded. If she had loved him she
+would have been crushed. For two days he lived a miserable existence
+upon his high perch. He consoled himself by thinking of how unhappy he
+was, and by swift, furtive glances at the loved face. At any rate he was
+in her presence, and he could get a good view from his perch when there
+was no interference by the little sign: "Cashier."
+
+But suddenly, swiftly, these clouds vanished, and under the imperial
+blue sky of the restored confidence they dwelt in peace, a peace that
+was satisfaction, a peace that, like a babe, put its trust in the
+treachery of the future. This confidence endured until the next day,
+when she, for an unknown cause, suddenly refused to look at him.
+Mechanically he continued his task, his brain dazed, a tortured victim
+of doubt, fear, suspicion. With his eyes he supplicated her to telegraph
+an explanation. She replied with a stony glance that froze his blood.
+There was a great difference in their respective reasons for becoming
+angry. His were always foolish, but apparent, plain as the moon. Hers
+were subtle, feminine, as incomprehensible as the stars, as mysterious
+as the shadows at night.
+
+They fell and soared and soared and fell in this manner until they knew
+that to live without each other would be a wandering in deserts. They
+had grown so intent upon the uncertainties, the variations, the
+guessings of their affair that the world had become but a huge
+immaterial background. In time of peace their smiles were soft and
+prayerful, caresses confided to the air. In time of war, their youthful
+hearts, capable of profound agony, were wrung by the intricate emotions
+of doubt. They were the victims of the dread angel of affectionate
+speculation that forces the brain endlessly on roads that lead nowhere.
+
+At night, the problem of whether she loved him confronted the young man
+like a spectre, looming as high as a hill and telling him not to delude
+himself. Upon the following day, this battle of the night displayed
+itself in the renewed fervor of his glances and in their increased
+number. Whenever he thought he could detect that she too was suffering,
+he felt a thrill of joy.
+
+But there came a time when the young man looked back upon these
+contortions with contempt. He believed then that he had imagined his
+pain. This came about when the redoubtable Stimson marched forward to
+participate.
+
+"This has got to stop," Stimson had said to himself, as he stood and
+watched them. They had grown careless of the light world that clattered
+about them; they were become so engrossed in their personal drama that
+the language of their eyes was almost as obvious as gestures. And
+Stimson, through his keenness, his wonderful, infallible penetration,
+suddenly came into possession of these obvious facts. "Well, of all the
+nerves," he said, regarding with a new interest the young man upon the
+perch.
+
+He was a resolute man. He never hesitated to grapple with a crisis. He
+decided to overturn everything at once, for, although small, he was very
+fierce and impetuous. He resolved to crush this dreaming.
+
+He strode over to the silvered netting. "Say, you want to quit your
+everlasting grinning at that idiot," he said, grimly.
+
+The girl cast down her eyes and made a little heap of quarters into a
+stack. She was unable to withstand the terrible scrutiny of her small
+and fierce father.
+
+Stimson turned from his daughter and went to a spot beneath the
+platform. He fixed his eyes upon the young man and said--
+
+"I've been speakin' to Lizzie. You better attend strictly to your own
+business or there'll be a new man here next week." It was as if he had
+blazed away with a shotgun. The young man reeled upon his perch. At last
+he in a measure regained his composure and managed to stammer: "A--all
+right, sir." He knew that denials would be futile with the terrible
+Stimson. He agitatedly began to rattle the rings in the basket, and
+pretend that he was obliged to count them or inspect them in some way.
+He, too, was unable to face the great Stimson.
+
+For a moment, Stimson stood in fine satisfaction and gloated over the
+effect of his threat.
+
+"I've fixed them," he said complacently, and went out to smoke a cigar
+and revel in himself. Through his mind went the proud reflection that
+people who came in contact with his granite will usually ended in quick
+and abject submission.
+
+
+II
+
+One evening, a week after Stimson had indulged in the proud reflection
+that people who came in contact with his granite will usually ended in
+quick and abject submission, a young feminine friend of the girl behind
+the silvered netting came to her there and asked her to walk on the
+beach after "Stimson's Mammoth Merry-Go-Round" was closed for the night.
+The girl assented with a nod.
+
+The young man upon the perch holding the rings saw this nod and judged
+its meaning. Into his mind came an idea of defeating the watchfulness of
+the redoubtable Stimson. When the Merry-Go-Round was closed and the two
+girls started for the beach, he wandered off aimlessly in another
+direction, but he kept them in view, and as soon as he was assured that
+he had escaped the vigilance of Stimson, he followed them.
+
+The electric lights on the beach made a broad band of tremoring light,
+extending parallel to the sea, and upon the wide walk there slowly
+paraded a great crowd, intermingling, intertwining, sometimes colliding.
+In the darkness stretched the vast purple expanse of the ocean, and the
+deep indigo sky above was peopled with yellow stars. Occasionally out
+upon the water a whirling mass of froth suddenly flashed into view, like
+a great ghostly robe appearing, and then vanished, leaving the sea in
+its darkness, whence came those bass tones of the water's unknown
+emotion. A wind, cool, reminiscent of the wave wastes, made the women
+hold their wraps about their throats, and caused the men to grip the
+rims of their straw hats. It carried the noise of the band in the
+pavilion in gusts. Sometimes people unable to hear the music glanced up
+at the pavilion and were reassured upon beholding the distant leader
+still gesticulating and bobbing, and the other members of the band with
+their lips glued to their instruments. High in the sky soared an
+unassuming moon, faintly silver.
+
+For a time the young man was afraid to approach the two girls; he
+followed them at a distance and called himself a coward. At last,
+however, he saw them stop on the outer edge of the crowd and stand
+silently listening to the voices of the sea. When he came to where they
+stood, he was trembling in his agitation. They had not seen him.
+
+"Lizzie," he began. "I----"
+
+The girl wheeled instantly and put her hand to her throat.
+
+"Oh, Frank, how you frightened me," she said--inevitably.
+
+"Well, you know, I--I----" he stuttered.
+
+But the other girl was one of those beings who are born to attend at
+tragedies. She had for love a reverence, an admiration that was greater
+the more that she contemplated the fact that she knew nothing of it.
+This couple, with their emotions, awed her and made her humbly wish that
+she might be destined to be of some service to them. She was very
+homely.
+
+When the young man faltered before them, she, in her sympathy, actually
+over-estimated the crisis, and felt that he might fall dying at their
+feet. Shyly, but with courage, she marched to the rescue.
+
+"Won't you come and walk on the beach with us?" she said.
+
+The young man gave her a glance of deep gratitude which was not without
+the patronage which a man in his condition naturally feels for one who
+pities it. The three walked on.
+
+Finally, the being who was born to attend at this tragedy said that she
+wished to sit down and gaze at the sea, alone.
+
+They politely urged her to walk on with them, but she was obstinate. She
+wished to gaze at the sea, alone. The young man swore to himself that he
+would be her friend until he died.
+
+And so the two young lovers went on without her. They turned once to
+look at her.
+
+"Jennie's awful nice," said the girl.
+
+"You bet she is," replied the young man, ardently.
+
+They were silent for a little time.
+
+At last the girl said--
+
+"You were angry at me yesterday."
+
+"No, I wasn't."
+
+"Yes, you were, too. You wouldn't look at me once all day."
+
+"No, I wasn't angry. I was only putting on."
+
+Though she had, of course, known it, this confession seemed to make her
+very indignant. She flashed a resentful glance at him.
+
+"Oh, you were, indeed?" she said with a great air.
+
+For a few minutes she was so haughty with him that he loved her to
+madness. And directly this poem, which stuck at his lips, came forth
+lamely in fragments.
+
+When they walked back toward the other girl and saw the patience of her
+attitude, their hearts swelled in a patronizing and secondary tenderness
+for her.
+
+They were very happy. If they had been miserable they would have charged
+this fairy scene of the night with a criminal heartlessness; but as they
+were joyous, they vaguely wondered how the purple sea, the yellow stars,
+the changing crowds under the electric lights could be so phlegmatic and
+stolid.
+
+They walked home by the lakeside way, and out upon the water those gay
+paper lanterns, flashing, fleeting, and careering, sang to them, sang a
+chorus of red and violet, and green and gold; a song of mystic bands of
+the future.
+
+One day, when business paused during a dull sultry afternoon, Stimson
+went up town. Upon his return, he found that the popcorn man, from his
+stand over in a corner, was keeping an eye upon the cashier's cage, and
+that nobody at all was attending to the wooden arm and the iron rings.
+He strode forward like a sergeant of grenadiers.
+
+"Where in thunder is Lizzie?" he demanded, a cloud of rage in his eyes.
+
+The popcorn man, although associated long with Stimson, had never got
+over being dazed.
+
+"They've--they've--gone round to th'--th'--house," he said with
+difficulty, as if he had just been stunned.
+
+"Whose house?" snapped Stimson.
+
+"Your--your house, I s'pose," said the popcorn man.
+
+Stimson marched round to his home. Kingly denunciations surged, already
+formulated, to the tip of his tongue, and he bided the moment when his
+anger could fall upon the heads of that pair of children. He found his
+wife convulsive and in tears.
+
+"Where's Lizzie?"
+
+And then she burst forth--"Oh--John--John--they've run away, I know they
+have. They drove by here not three minutes ago. They must have done it
+on purpose to bid me good-bye, for Lizzie waved her hand sadlike; and
+then, before I could get out to ask where they were going or what, Frank
+whipped up the horse."
+
+Stimson gave vent to a dreadful roar.
+
+"Get my revolver--get a hack--get my revolver, do you hear--what the
+devil--" His voice became incoherent.
+
+He had always ordered his wife about as if she were a battalion of
+infantry, and despite her misery, the training of years forced her to
+spring mechanically to obey; but suddenly she turned to him with a
+shrill appeal.
+
+"Oh, John--not--the--revolver."
+
+"Confound it, let go of me!" he roared again, and shook her from him.
+
+He ran hatless upon the street. There were a multitude of hacks at the
+summer resort, but it was ages to him before he could find one. Then he
+charged it like a bull.
+
+"Uptown!" he yelled, as he tumbled into the rear seat.
+
+The hackman thought of severed arteries. His galloping horse distanced a
+large number of citizens who had been running to find what caused such
+contortions by the little hatless man.
+
+It chanced as the bouncing hack went along near the lake, Stimson gazed
+across the calm grey expanse and recognized a color in a bonnet and a
+pose of a head. A buggy was traveling along a highway that led to
+Sorington. Stimson bellowed--"There--there--there they are--in that
+buggy."
+
+The hackman became inspired with the full knowledge of the situation. He
+struck a delirious blow with the whip. His mouth expanded in a grin of
+excitement and joy. It came to pass that this old vehicle, with its
+drowsy horse and its dusty-eyed and tranquil driver, seemed suddenly to
+awaken, to become animated and fleet. The horse ceased to ruminate on
+his state, his air of reflection vanished. He became intent upon his
+aged legs and spread them in quaint and ridiculous devices for speed.
+The driver, his eyes shining, sat critically in his seat. He watched
+each motion of this rattling machine down before him. He resembled an
+engineer. He used the whip with judgment and deliberation as the
+engineer would have used coal or oil. The horse clacked swiftly upon the
+macadam, the wheels hummed, the body of the vehicle wheezed and groaned.
+
+Stimson, in the rear seat, was erect in that impassive attitude that
+comes sometimes to the furious man when he is obliged to leave the
+battle to others. Frequently, however, the tempest in his breast came to
+his face and he howled--
+
+"Go it--go it--you're gaining; pound 'im! Thump the life out of 'im; hit
+'im hard, you fool!" His hand grasped the rod that supported the
+carriage top, and it was clenched so that the nails were faintly blue.
+
+Ahead, that other carriage had been flying with speed, as from
+realization of the menace in the rear. It bowled away rapidly, drawn by
+the eager spirit of a young and modern horse. Stimson could see the
+buggy-top bobbing, bobbing. That little pane, like an eye, was a
+derision to him. Once he leaned forward and bawled angry sentences. He
+began to feel impotent; his whole expedition was a tottering of an old
+man upon a trail of birds. A sense of age made him choke again with
+wrath. That other vehicle, that was youth, with youth's pace; it was
+swift-flying with the hope of dreams. He began to comprehend those two
+children ahead of him, and he knew a sudden and strange awe, because he
+understood the power of their young blood, the power to fly strongly
+into the future and feel and hope again, even at that time when his
+bones must be laid in the earth. The dust rose easily from the hot road
+and stifled the nostrils of Stimson.
+
+The highway vanished far away in a point with a suggestion of
+intolerable length. The other vehicle was becoming so small that Stimson
+could no longer see the derisive eye.
+
+At last the hackman drew rein to his horse and turned to look at
+Stimson.
+
+"No use, I guess," he said.
+
+Stimson made a gesture of acquiescence, rage, despair. As the hackman
+turned his dripping horse about, Stimson sank back with the astonishment
+and grief of a man who has been defied by the universe. He had been in a
+great perspiration, and now his bald head felt cool and uncomfortable.
+He put up his hand with a sudden recollection that he had forgotten his
+hat.
+
+At last he made a gesture. It meant that at any rate he was not
+responsible.
+
+
+
+
+A TENT IN AGONY
+
+
+A SULLIVAN COUNTY TALE
+
+Four men once came to a wet place in the roadless forest to fish. They
+pitched their tent fair upon the brow of a pine-clothed ridge of riven
+rocks whence a bowlder could be made to crash through the brush and
+whirl past the trees to the lake below. On fragrant hemlock boughs they
+slept the sleep of unsuccessful fishermen, for upon the lake alternately
+the sun made them lazy and the rain made them wet. Finally they ate the
+last bit of bacon and smoked and burned the last fearful and wonderful
+hoecake.
+
+Immediately a little man volunteered to stay and hold the camp while the
+remaining three should go the Sullivan county miles to a farmhouse for
+supplies. They gazed at him dismally. "There's only one of you--the
+devil make a twin," they said in parting malediction, and disappeared
+down the hill in the known direction of a distant cabin. When it came
+night and the hemlocks began to sob they had not returned. The little
+man sat close to his companion, the campfire, and encouraged it with
+logs. He puffed fiercely at a heavy built brier, and regarded a thousand
+shadows which were about to assault him. Suddenly he heard the approach
+of the unknown, crackling the twigs and rustling the dead leaves. The
+little man arose slowly to his feet, his clothes refused to fit his
+back, his pipe dropped from his mouth, his knees smote each other.
+"Hah!" he bellowed hoarsely in menace. A growl replied and a bear paced
+into the light of the fire. The little man supported himself upon a
+sapling and regarded his visitor.
+
+The bear was evidently a veteran and a fighter, for the black of his
+coat had become tawny with age. There was confidence in his gait and
+arrogance in his small, twinkling eye. He rolled back his lips and
+disclosed his white teeth. The fire magnified the red of his mouth. The
+little man had never before confronted the terrible and he could not
+wrest it from his breast. "Hah!" he roared. The bear interpreted this as
+the challenge of a gladiator. He approached warily. As he came near, the
+boots of fear were suddenly upon the little man's feet. He cried out and
+then darted around the campfire. "Ho!" said the bear to himself, "this
+thing won't fight--it runs. Well, suppose I catch it." So upon his
+features there fixed the animal look of going--somewhere. He started
+intensely around the campfire. The little man shrieked and ran
+furiously. Twice around they went.
+
+The hand of heaven sometimes falls heavily upon the righteous. The bear
+gained.
+
+In desperation the little man flew into the tent. The bear stopped and
+sniffed at the entrance. He scented the scent of many men. Finally he
+ventured in.
+
+The little man crouched in a distant corner. The bear advanced,
+creeping, his blood burning, his hair erect, his jowls dripping. The
+little man yelled and rustled clumsily under the flap at the end of the
+tent. The bear snarled awfully and made a jump and a grab at his
+disappearing game. The little man, now without the tent, felt a
+tremendous paw grab his coat tails. He squirmed and wriggled out of his
+coat like a schoolboy in the hands of an avenger. The bear bowled
+triumphantly and jerked the coat into the tent and took two bites, a
+punch and a hug before he, discovered his man was not in it. Then he
+grew not very angry, for a bear on a spree is not a black-haired pirate.
+He is merely a hoodlum. He lay down on his back, took the coat on his
+four paws and began to play uproariously with it. The most appalling,
+blood-curdling whoops and yells came to where the little man was crying
+in a treetop and froze his blood. He moaned a little speech meant for a
+prayer and clung convulsively to the bending branches. He gazed with
+tearful wistfulness at where his comrade, the campfire, was giving dying
+flickers and crackles. Finally, there was a roar from the tent which
+eclipsed all roars; a snarl which it seemed would shake the stolid
+silence of the mountain and cause it to shrug its granite shoulders. The
+little man quaked and shrivelled to a grip and a pair of eyes. In the
+glow of the embers he saw the white tent quiver and fall with a crash.
+The bear's merry play had disturbed the center pole and brought a chaos
+of canvas upon his head.
+
+Now the little man became the witness of a mighty scene. The tent began
+to flounder. It took flopping strides in the direction of the lake.
+Marvellous sounds came from within--rips and tears, and great groans and
+pants. The little man went into giggling hysterics.
+
+The entangled monster failed to extricate himself before he had walloped
+the tent frenziedly to the edge of the mountain. So it came to pass that
+three men, clambering up the hill with bundles and baskets, saw their
+tent approaching. It seemed to them like a white-robed phantom pursued
+by hornets. Its moans riffled the hemlock twigs.
+
+The three men dropped their bundles and scurried to one side, their eyes
+gleaming with fear. The canvas avalanche swept past them. They leaned,
+faint and dumb, against trees and listened, their blood stagnant. Below
+them it struck the base of a great pine tree, where it writhed and
+struggled. The three watched its convolutions a moment and then started
+terrifically for the top of the hill. As they disappeared, the bear cut
+loose with a mighty effort. He cast one dishevelled and agonized look at
+the white thing, and then started wildly for the inner recesses of the
+forest.
+
+The three fear-stricken individuals ran to the rebuilt fire. The little
+man reposed by it calmly smoking. They sprang at him and overwhelmed him
+with interrogations. He contemplated darkness and took a long, pompous
+puff. "There's only one of me--and the devil made a twin," he said.
+
+
+
+
+FOUR MEN IN A CAVE
+
+
+LIKEWISE FOUR QUEENS, AND A SULLIVAN COUNTY HERMIT
+
+The moon rested for a moment on the top of a tall pine on a hill.
+
+The little man was standing in front of the campfire making orations to
+his companions.
+
+"We can tell a great tale when we get back to the city if we investigate
+this thing," said he, in conclusion.
+
+They were won.
+
+The little man was determined to explore a cave, because its black mouth
+had gaped at him. The four men took a lighted pine-knot and clambered
+over boulders down a hill. In a thicket on the mountainside lay a little
+tilted hole. At its side they halted.
+
+"Well?" said the little man.
+
+They fought for last place and the little man was overwhelmed. He tried
+to struggle from under by crying that if the fat, pudgy man came after,
+he would be corked. But he finally administered a cursing over his
+shoulder and crawled into the hole. His companions gingerly followed.
+
+A passage, the floor of damp clay and pebbles, the walls slimy, green-
+mossed, and dripping, sloped downward. In the cave atmosphere the
+torches became studies in red blaze and black smoke.
+
+"Ho!" cried the little man, stifled and bedraggled, "let's go back." His
+companions were not brave. They were last. The next one to the little
+man pushed him on, so the little man said sulphurous words and
+cautiously continued his crawl.
+
+Things that hung seemed to be on the wet, uneven ceiling, ready to drop
+upon the men's bare necks. Under their hands the clammy floor seemed
+alive and writhing. When the little man endeavored to stand erect the
+ceiling forced him down. Knobs and points came out and punched him. His
+clothes were wet and mud-covered, and his eyes, nearly blinded by smoke,
+tried to pierce the darkness always before his torch.
+
+"Oh, I say, you fellows, let's go back," cried he. At that moment he
+caught the gleam of trembling light in the blurred shadows before him.
+
+"Ho!" he said, "here's another way out."
+
+The passage turned abruptly. The little man put one hand around the
+corner, but it touched nothing. He investigated and discovered that the
+little corridor took a sudden dip down a hill. At the bottom shone a
+yellow light.
+
+The little man wriggled painfully about, and descended feet in advance.
+The others followed his plan. All picked their way with anxious care.
+The traitorous rocks rolled from beneath the little man's feet and
+roared thunderously below him, lesser stone loosened by the men above
+him, hit him on the back. He gained seemingly firm foothold, and,
+turning halfway about, swore redly at his companions for dolts and
+careless fools. The pudgy man sat, puffing and perspiring, high in the
+rear of the procession. The fumes and smoke from four pine-knots were in
+his blood. Cinders and sparks lay thick in his eyes and hair. The pause
+of the little man angered him.
+
+"Go on, you fool!" he shouted. "Poor, painted man, you are afraid."
+
+"Ho!" said the little man. "Come down here and go on yourself,
+imbecile!"
+
+The pudgy man vibrated with passion. He leaned downward. "Idiot--"
+
+He was interrupted by one of his feet which flew out and crashed into
+the man in front of and below. It is not well to quarrel upon a slippery
+incline, when the unknown is below. The fat man, having lost the support
+of one pillar-like foot, lurched forward. His body smote the next man,
+who hurtled into the next man. Then they all fell upon the cursing
+little man.
+
+They slid in a body down over the slippery, slimy floor of the passage.
+The stone avenue must have wibble-wobbled with the rush of this ball of
+tangled men and strangled cries. The torches went out with the combined
+assault upon the little man. The adventurers whirled to the unknown in
+darkness. The little man felt that he was pitching to death, but even in
+his convolutions he bit and scratched at his companions, for he was
+satisfied that it was their fault. The swirling mass went some twenty
+feet, and lit upon a level, dry place in a strong, yellow light of
+candles. It dissolved and became eyes.
+
+The four men lay in a heap upon the floor of a grey chamber. A small
+fire smoldered in the corner, the smoke disappearing in a crack. In
+another corner was a bed of faded hemlock boughs and two blankets.
+Cooking utensils and clothes lay about, with boxes and a barrel.
+
+Of these things the four men took small cognisance. The pudgy man did
+not curse the little man, nor did the little man swear, in the abstract.
+Eight widened eyes were fixed upon the center of the room of rocks.
+
+A great, gray stone, cut squarely, like an altar, sat in the middle of
+the floor. Over it burned three candles, in swaying tin cups hung from
+the ceiling. Before it, with what seemed to be a small volume clasped in
+his yellow fingers, stood a man. He was an infinitely sallow person in
+the brown-checked shirt of the ploughs and cows. The rest of his apparel
+was boots. A long grey beard dangled from his chin. He fixed glinting,
+fiery eyes upon the heap of men, and remained motionless. Fascinated,
+their tongues cleaving, their blood cold, they arose to their feet. The
+gleaming glance of the recluse swept slowly over the group until it
+found the face of the little man. There it stayed and burned.
+
+The little man shrivelled and crumpled as the dried leaf under the
+glass.
+
+Finally, the recluse slowly, deeply spoke. It was a true voice from a
+cave, cold, solemn, and damp.
+
+"It's your ante," he said.
+
+"What?" said the little man.
+
+The hermit tilted his beard and laughed a laugh that was either the
+chatter of a banshee in a storm or the rattle of pebbles in a tin box.
+His visitors' flesh seemed ready to drop from their bones.
+
+They huddled together and cast fearful eyes over their shoulders. They
+whispered.
+
+"A vampire!" said one.
+
+"A ghoul!" said another.
+
+"A Druid before the sacrifice," murmured another.
+
+"The shade of an Aztec witch doctor," said the little man.
+
+As they looked, the inscrutable face underwent a change. It became a
+livid background for his eyes, which blazed at the little man like
+impassioned carbuncles. His voice arose to a howl of ferocity. "It's
+your ante!" With a panther-like motion he drew a long, thin knife and
+advanced, stooping. Two cadaverous hounds came from nowhere, and,
+scowling and growling, made desperate feints at the little man's legs.
+His quaking companions pushed him forward.
+
+Tremblingly he put his hand to his pocket.
+
+"How much?" he said, with a shivering look at the knife that glittered.
+
+The carbuncles faded.
+
+"Three dollars," said the hermit, in sepulchral tones which rang against
+the walls and among the passages, awakening long-dead spirits with
+voices. The shaking little man took a roll of bills from a pocket and
+placed "three ones" upon the altar-like stone. The recluse looked at the
+little volume with reverence in his eyes. It was a pack of playing
+cards.
+
+Under the three swinging candles, upon the altar-like stone, the grey
+beard and the agonized little man played at poker. The three other men
+crouched in a corner, and stared with eyes that gleamed with terror.
+Before them sat the cadaverous hounds licking their red lips. The
+candles burned low, and began to flicker. The fire in the corner
+expired.
+
+Finally, the game came to a point where the little man laid down his
+hand and quavered: "I can't call you this time, sir. I'm dead broke."
+
+"What?" shrieked the recluse. "Not call me! Villain Dastard! Cur! I have
+four queens, miscreant." His voice grew so mighty that it could not fit
+his throat. He choked wrestling with his lungs for a moment. Then the
+power of his body was concentrated in a word: "Go!"
+
+He pointed a quivering, yellow finger at a wide crack in the rock. The
+little man threw himself at it with a howl. His erstwhile frozen
+companions felt their blood throb again. With great bounds they plunged
+after the little man. A minute of scrambling, falling, and pushing
+brought them to open air. They climbed the distance to their camp in
+furious springs.
+
+The sky in the east was a lurid yellow. In the west the footprints of
+departing night lay on the pine trees. In front of their replenished
+camp fire sat John Willerkins, the guide.
+
+"Hello!" he shouted at their approach. "Be you fellers ready to go deer
+huntin'?"
+
+Without replying, they stopped and debated among themselves in whispers.
+
+Finally, the pudgy man came forward.
+
+"John," he inquired, "do you know anything peculiar about this cave
+below here?"
+
+"Yes," said Willerkins at once; "Tom Gardner."
+
+"What?" said the pudgy man.
+
+"Tom Gardner."
+
+"How's that?"
+
+"Well, you see," said Willerkins slowly, as he took dignified pulls at
+his pipe, "Tom Gardner was once a fambly man, who lived in these here
+parts on a nice leetle farm. He uster go away to the city orften, and
+one time he got a-gamblin' in one of them there dens. He went ter the
+dickens right quick then. At last he kum home one time and tol' his
+folks he had up and sold the farm and all he had in the worl'. His
+leetle wife she died then. Tom he went crazy, and soon after--"
+
+The narrative was interrupted by the little man, who became possessed of
+devils.
+
+"I wouldn't give a cuss if he had left me 'nough money to get home on
+the doggoned, grey-haired red pirate," he shrilled, in a seething
+sentence. The pudgy man gazed at the little man calmly and sneeringly.
+
+"Oh, well," he said, "we can tell a great tale when we get back to the
+city after having investigated this thing."
+
+"Go to the devil," replied the little man.
+
+
+
+
+THE MESMERIC MOUNTAIN
+
+
+A TALE OF SULLIVAN COUNTY
+
+On the brow of a pine-plumed hillock there sat a little man with his
+back against a tree. A venerable pipe hung from his mouth, and smoke-
+wreaths curled slowly skyward, he was muttering to himself with his eyes
+fixed on an irregular black opening in the green wall of forest at the
+foot of the hill. Two vague wagon ruts led into the shadows. The little
+man took his pipe in his hands and addressed the listening pines.
+
+"I wonder what the devil it leads to," said he.
+
+A grey, fat rabbit came lazily from a thicket and sat in the opening.
+Softly stroking his stomach with his paw, he looked at the little man in
+a thoughtful manner. The little man threw a stone, and the rabbit
+blinked and ran through an opening. Green, shadowy portals seemed to
+close behind him.
+
+The little man started. "He's gone down that roadway," he said, with
+ecstatic mystery to the pines. He sat a long time and contemplated the
+door to the forest. Finally, he arose, and awakening his limbs, started
+away. But he stopped and looked back.
+
+"I can't imagine what it leads to," muttered he. He trudged over the
+brown mats of pine needles, to where, in a fringe of laurel, a tent was
+pitched, and merry flames caroused about some logs. A pudgy man was
+fuming over a collection of tin dishes. He came forward and waved a
+plate furiously in the little man's face.
+
+"I've washed the dishes for three days. What do you think I am--"
+
+He ended a red oration with a roar: "Damned if I do it any more."
+
+The little man gazed dim-eyed away. "I've been wonderin' what it leads
+to."
+
+"What?"
+
+"That road out yonder. I've been wonderin' what it leads to. Maybe, some
+discovery or something," said the little man.
+
+The pudgy man laughed. "You're an idiot. It leads to ol' Jim Boyd's over
+on the Lumberland Pike."
+
+"Ho!" said the little man, "I don't believe that."
+
+The pudgy man swore. "Fool, what does it lead to, then?"
+
+"I don't know just what, but I'm sure it leads to something great or
+something. It looks like it."
+
+While the pudgy man was cursing, two more men came from obscurity with
+fish dangling from birch twigs. The pudgy man made an obviously
+herculean struggle and a meal was prepared. As he was drinking his cup
+of coffee, he suddenly spilled it and swore. The little man was
+wandering off.
+
+"He's gone to look at that hole," cried the pudgy man.
+
+The little man went to the edge of the pine-plumed hillock, and, sitting
+down, began to make smoke and regard the door to the forest. There was
+stillness for an hour. Compact clouds hung unstirred in the sky. The
+pines stood motionless, and pondering.
+
+Suddenly the little man slapped his knees and bit his tongue. He stood
+up and determinedly filled his pipe, rolling his eye over the bowl to
+the doorway. Keeping his eyes fixed he slid dangerously to the foot of
+the hillock and walked down the wagon ruts. A moment later he passed
+from the noise of the sunshine to the gloom of the woods.
+
+The green portals closed, shutting out live things. The little man
+trudged on alone.
+
+Tall tangled grass grew in the roadway, and the trees bended obstructing
+branches. The little man followed on over pine-clothed ridges and down
+through water-soaked swales. His shoes were cut by rocks of the
+mountains, and he sank ankle-deep in mud and moss of swamps. A curve
+just ahead lured him miles.
+
+Finally, as he wended the side of a ridge, the road disappeared from
+beneath his feet. He battled with hordes of ignorant bushes on his way
+to knolls and solitary trees which invited him. Once he came to a tall,
+bearded pine. He climbed it, and perceived in the distance a peak. He
+uttered an ejaculation and fell out.
+
+He scrambled to his feet, and said: "That's Jones's Mountain, I guess.
+It's about six miles from our camp as the crow flies."
+
+He changed his course away from the mountain, and attacked the bushes
+again. He climbed over great logs, golden-brown in decay, and was
+opposed by thickets of dark-green laurel. A brook slid through the ooze
+of a swamp, cedars and hemlocks hung their spray to the edges of pools.
+
+The little man began to stagger in his walk. After a time he stopped and
+mopped his brow.
+
+"My legs are about to shrivel up and drop off," he said.... "Still if I
+keep on in this direction, I am safe to strike the Lumberland Pike
+before sundown."
+
+He dived at a clump of tag-alders, and emerging, confronted Jones's
+Mountain.
+
+The wanderer sat down in a clear space and fixed his eyes on the summit.
+His mouth opened widely, and his body swayed at times. The little man
+and the peak stared in silence.
+
+A lazy lake lay asleep near the foot of the mountain. In its bed of
+water-grass some frogs leered at the sky and crooned. The sun sank in
+red silence, and the shadows of the pines grew formidable. The expectant
+hush of evening, as if some thing were going to sing a hymn, fell upon
+the peak and the little man.
+
+A leaping pickerel off on the water created a silver circle that was
+lost in black shadows. The little man shook himself and started to his
+feet, crying: "For the love of Mike, there's eyes in this mountain! I
+feel 'em! Eyes!"
+
+He fell on his face.
+
+When he looked again, he immediately sprang erect and ran.
+
+"It's comin'!"
+
+The mountain was approaching.
+
+The little man scurried, sobbing through the thick growth. He felt his
+brain turning to water. He vanquished brambles with mighty bounds.
+
+But after a time he came again to the foot of the mountain.
+
+"God!" he howled, "it's been follerin' me." He grovelled.
+
+Casting his eyes upward made circles swirl in his blood.
+
+"I'm shackled I guess," he moaned. As he felt the heel of the mountain
+about to crush his head, he sprang again to his feet. He grasped a
+handful of small stones and hurled them.
+
+"Damn you," he shrieked loudly. The pebbles rang against the face of the
+mountain.
+
+The little man then made an attack. He climbed with hands and feet
+wildly. Brambles forced him back and stones slid from beneath his feet.
+The peak swayed and tottered, and was ever about to smite with a granite
+arm. The summit was a blaze of red wrath.
+
+But the little man at last reached the top. Immediately he swaggered
+with valor to the edge of the cliff. His hands were scornfully in his
+pockets.
+
+He gazed at the western horizon, edged sharply against a yellow sky.
+"Ho!" he said. "There's Boyd's house and the Lumberland Pike."
+
+The mountain under his feet was motionless.
+
+
+
+
+THE SNAKE
+
+
+Where the path wended across the ridge, the bushes of huckleberry and
+sweet fern swarmed at it in two curling waves until it was a mere
+winding line traced through a tangle. There was no interference by
+clouds, and as the rays of the sun fell full upon the ridge, they called
+into voice innumerable insects which chanted the heat of the summer day
+in steady, throbbing, unending chorus.
+
+A man and a dog came from the laurel thickets of the valley where the
+white brook brawled with the rocks. They followed the deep line of the
+path across the ridges. The dog--a large lemon and white setter--walked,
+tranquilly meditative, at his master's heels.
+
+Suddenly from some unknown and yet near place in advance there came a
+dry, shrill whistling rattle that smote motion instantly from the limbs
+of the man and the dog. Like the fingers of a sudden death, this sound
+seemed to touch the man at the nape of the neck, at the top of the
+spine, and change him, as swift as thought, to a statue of listening
+horror, surprise, rage. The dog, too--the same icy hand was laid upon
+him, and he stood crouched and quivering, his jaw dropping, the froth of
+terror upon his lips, the light of hatred in his eyes.
+
+Slowly the man moved his hands toward the bushes, but his glance did not
+turn from the place made sinister by the warning rattle. His fingers,
+unguided, sought for a stick of weight and strength. Presently they
+closed about one that seemed adequate, and holding this weapon poised
+before him the man moved slowly forward, glaring. The dog with his
+nervous nostrils fairly fluttering moved warily, one foot at a time,
+after his master.
+
+But when the man came upon the snake, his body underwent a shock as if
+from a revelation, as if after all he had been ambushed. With a blanched
+face, he sprang forward and his breath came in strained gasps, his chest
+heaving as if he were in the performance of an extraordinary muscular
+trial. His arm with the stick made a spasmodic, defensive gesture.
+
+The snake had apparently been crossing the path in some mystic travel
+when to his sense there came the knowledge of the coming of his foes.
+The dull vibration perhaps informed him, and he flung his body to face
+the danger. He had no knowledge of paths; he had no wit to tell him to
+slink noiselessly into the bushes. He knew that his implacable enemies
+were approaching; no doubt they were seeking him, hunting him. And so he
+cried his cry, an incredibly swift jangle of tiny bells, as burdened
+with pathos as the hammering upon quaint cymbals by the Chinese at war--
+for, indeed, it was usually his death-music.
+
+"Beware! Beware! Beware!"
+
+The man and the snake confronted each other. In the man's eyes were
+hatred and fear. In the snake's eyes were hatred and fear. These enemies
+maneuvered, each preparing to kill. It was to be a battle without mercy.
+Neither knew of mercy for such a situation. In the man was all the wild
+strength of the terror of his ancestors, of his race, of his kind. A
+deadly repulsion had been handed from man to man through long dim
+centuries. This was another detail of a war that had begun evidently
+when first there were men and snakes. Individuals who do not participate
+in this strife incur the investigations of scientists. Once there was a
+man and a snake who were friends, and at the end, the man lay dead with
+the marks of the snake's caress just over his East Indian heart. In the
+formation of devices, hideous and horrible, Nature reached her supreme
+point in the making of the snake, so that priests who really paint hell
+well fill it with snakes instead of fire. The curving forms, these
+scintillant coloring create at once, upon sight, more relentless
+animosities than do shake barbaric tribes. To be born a snake is to be
+thrust into a place a-swarm with formidable foes. To gain an
+appreciation of it, view hell as pictured by priests who are really
+skilful.
+
+As for this snake in the pathway, there was a double curve some inches
+back of its head, which, merely by the potency of its lines, made the
+man feel with tenfold eloquence the touch of the death-fingers at the
+nape of his neck. The reptile's head was waving slowly from side to side
+and its hot eyes flashed like little murder-lights. Always in the air
+was the dry, shrill whistling of the rattles.
+
+"Beware! Beware! Beware!"
+
+The man made a preliminary feint with his stick. Instantly the snake's
+heavy head and neck were bended back on the double curve and instantly
+the snake's body shot forward in a low, strait, hard spring. The man
+jumped with a convulsive chatter and swung his stick. The blind,
+sweeping blow fell upon the snake's head and hurled him so that steel-
+colored plates were for a moment uppermost. But he rallied swiftly,
+agilely, and again the head and neck bended back to the double curve,
+and the steaming, wide-open mouth made its desperate effort to reach its
+enemy. This attack, it could be seen, was despairing, but it was
+nevertheless impetuous, gallant, ferocious, of the same quality as the
+charge of the lone chief when the walls of white faces close upon him in
+the mountains. The stick swung unerringly again, and the snake,
+mutilated, torn, whirled himself into the last coil.
+
+And now the man went sheer raving mad from the emotions of his
+forefathers and from his own. He came to close quarters. He gripped the
+stick with his two hands and made it speed like a flail. The snake,
+tumbling in the anguish of final despair, fought, bit, flung itself upon
+this stick which was taking his life.
+
+At the end, the man clutched his stick and stood watching in silence.
+The dog came slowly and with infinite caution stretched his nose
+forward, sniffing. The hair upon his neck and back moved and ruffled as
+if a sharp wind was blowing, the last muscular quivers of the snake were
+causing the rattles to still sound their treble cry, the shrill, ringing
+war chant and hymn of the grave of the thing that faces foes at once
+countless, implacable, and superior.
+
+"Well, Rover," said the man, turning to the dog with a grin of victory,
+"we'll carry Mr. Snake home to show the girls."
+
+His hands still trembled from the strain of the encounter, but he pried
+with his stick under the body of the snake and hoisted the limp thing
+upon it. He resumed his march along the path, and the dog walked
+tranquilly meditative, at his master's heels.
+
+
+
+
+LONDON IMPRESSIONS
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+London at first consisted of a porter with the most charming manners in
+the world, and a cabman with a supreme intelligence, both observing my
+profound ignorance without contempt or humor of any kind observable in
+their manners. It was in a great resounding vault of a place where there
+were many people who had come home, and I was displeased because they
+knew the detail of the business, whereas I was confronting the
+inscrutable. This made them appear very stony-hearted to the sufferings
+of one of whose existence, to be sure, they were entirely unaware, and I
+remember taking great pleasure in disliking them heartily for it. I was
+in an agony of mind over my baggage, or my luggage, or my--perhaps it is
+well to shy around this terrible international question; but I remember
+that when I was a lad I was told that there was a whole nation that said
+luggage instead of baggage, and my boyish mind was filled at the time
+with incredulity and scorn. In the present case it was a thing that I
+understood to involve the most hideous confessions of imbecility on my
+part, because I had evidently to go out to some obscure point and espy
+it and claim it, and take trouble for it; and I would rather have had my
+pockets filled with bread and cheese, and had no baggage at all.
+
+Mind you, this was not at all a homage that I was paying to London. I
+was paying homage to a new game. A man properly lazy does not like new
+experiences until they become old ones. Moreover, I have been taught
+that a man, any man, who has a thousand times more points of information
+on a certain thing than I have will bully me because of it, and pour his
+advantages upon my bowed head until I am drenched with his superiority.
+It was in my education to concede some license of the kind in this case,
+but the holy father of a porter and the saintly cabman occupied the
+middle distance imperturbably, and did not come down from their hills to
+clout me with knowledge. From this fact I experienced a criminal
+elation. I lost view of the idea that if I had been brow-beaten by
+porters and cabmen from one end of the United States to the other end I
+should warmly like it, because in numbers they are superior to me, and
+collectively they can have a great deal of fun out of a matter that
+would merely afford me the glee of the latent butcher.
+
+This London, composed of a porter and a cabman, stood to me subtly as a
+benefactor. I had scanned the drama, and found that I did not believe
+that the mood of the men emanated unduly from the feature that there was
+probably more shillings to the square inch of me than there were
+shillings to the square inch of them. Nor yet was it any manner of
+palpable warm-heartedness or other natural virtue. But it was a perfect
+artificial virtue; it was drill, plain, simple drill. And now was I glad
+of their drilling, and vividly approved of it, because I saw that it was
+good for me. Whether it was good or bad for the porter and the cabman I
+could not know; but that point, mark you, came within the pale of my
+respectable rumination.
+
+I am sure that it would have been more correct for me to have alighted
+upon St. Paul's and described no emotion until I was overcome by the
+Thames Embankment and the Houses of Parliament. But as a matter of fact
+I did not see them for some days, and at this time they did not concern
+me at all. I was born in London at a railroad station, and my new vision
+encompassed a porter and a cabman. They deeply absorbed me in new
+phenomena, and I did not then care to see the Thames Embankment nor the
+Houses of Parliament. I considered the porter and the cabman to be more
+important.
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+The cab finally rolled out of the gas-lit vault into a vast expanse of
+gloom. This changed to the shadowy lines of a street that was like a
+passage in a monstrous cave. The lamps winking here and there resembled
+the little gleams at the caps of the miners. They were not very
+competent illuminations at best, merely being little pale flares of gas
+that at their most heroic periods could only display one fact concerning
+this tunnel--the fact of general direction. But at any rate I should
+have liked to have observed the dejection of a search-light if it had
+been called upon to attempt to bore through this atmosphere. In it each
+man sat in his own little cylinder of vision, so to speak. It was not so
+small as a sentry-box nor so large as a circus tent, but the walls were
+opaque, and what was passing beyond the dimensions of his cylinder no
+man knew.
+
+It was evident that the paving was very greasy, but all the cabs that
+passed through my cylinder were going at a round trot, while the wheels,
+shod in rubber, whirred merely like bicycles. The hoofs of the animals
+themselves did not make that wild clatter which I knew so well. New York
+in fact, roars always like ten thousand devils. We have ingenuous and
+simple ways of making a din in New York that cause the stranger to
+conclude that each citizen is obliged by statute to provide himself with
+a pair of cymbals and a drum. If anything by chance can be turned into a
+noise it is promptly turned. We are engaged in the development of a
+human creature with very large, sturdy, and doubly, fortified ears.
+
+It was not too late at night, but this London moved with the decorum and
+caution of an undertaker. There was a silence, and yet there was no
+silence. There was a low drone, perhaps a humming contributed inevitably
+by closely-gathered thousands, and yet on second thoughts it was to me
+silence. I had perched my ears for the note of London, the sound made
+simply by the existence of five million people in one place. I had
+imagined something deep, vastly deep, a bass from a mythical organ, but
+found as far as I was concerned, only a silence.
+
+New York in numbers is a mighty city, and all day and all night it cries
+its loud, fierce, aspiring cry, a noise of men beating upon barrels, a
+noise of men beating upon tin, a terrific racket that assails the abject
+skies. No one of us seemed to question this row as a certain consequence
+of three or four million people living together and scuffling for coin,
+with more agility, perhaps, but otherwise in the usual way. However,
+after this easy silence of London, which in numbers is a mightier city,
+I began to feel that there was a seduction in this idea of necessity.
+Our noise in New York was not a consequence of our rapidity at all. It
+was a consequence of our bad pavements.
+
+Any brigade of artillery in Europe that would love to assemble its
+batteries, and then go on a gallop over the land, thundering and
+thundering, would give up the idea of thunder at once if it could hear
+Tim Mulligan drive a beer wagon along one of the side streets of cobbled
+New York.
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+Finally a great thing came to pass. The cab horse, proceeding at a sharp
+trot, found himself suddenly at the top of an incline, where through the
+rain the pavement shone like an expanse of ice. It looked to me as if
+there was going to be a tumble. In an accident of such a kind a hansom
+becomes really a cannon in which a man finds that he has paid shillings
+for the privilege of serving as a projectile. I was making a rapid
+calculation of the arc that I would describe in my flight, when the
+horse met his crisis with a masterly device that I could not have
+imagined. He tranquilly braced his four feet like a bundle of stakes,
+and then, with a gentle gaiety of demeanor, he slid swiftly and
+gracefully to the bottom of the hill as if he had been a toboggan. When
+the incline ended he caught his gait again with great dexterity, and
+went pattering off through another tunnel.
+
+I at once looked upon myself as being singularly blessed by this sight.
+This horse had evidently originated this system of skating as a
+diversion, or, more probably, as a precaution against the slippery
+pavement; and he was, of course the inventor and sole proprietor--two
+terms that are not always in conjunction. It surely was not to be
+supposed that there could be two skaters like him in the world. He
+deserved to be known and publicly praised for this accomplishment. It
+was worthy of many records and exhibitions. But when the cab arrived at
+a place where some dipping streets met, and the flaming front of a
+music-hall temporarily widened my cylinder, behold there were many cabs,
+and as the moment of necessity came the horses were all skaters. They
+were gliding in all directions. It might have been a rink. A great
+omnibus was hailed by a hand under an umbrella on the side walk, and the
+dignified horses bidden to halt from their trot did not waste time in
+wild and unseemly spasms. They, too, braced their legs and slid gravely
+to the end of their momentum.
+
+It was not the feat, but it was the word which had at this time the
+power to conjure memories of skating parties on moonlit lakes, with
+laughter ringing over the ice, and a great red bonfire on the shore
+among the hemlocks.
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+A Terrible thing in nature is the fall of a horse in his harness. It is
+a tragedy. Despite their skill in skating there was that about the
+pavement on the rainy evening which filled me with expectations of
+horses going headlong. Finally it happened just in front. There was a
+shout and a tangle in the darkness, and presently a prostrate cab horse
+came within my cylinder. The accident having been a complete success and
+altogether concluded, a voice from the side walk said, "_Look_ out,
+now! _Be_ more careful, can't you?"
+
+I remember a constituent of a Congressman at Washington who had tried in
+vain to bore this Congressman with a wild project of some kind. The
+Congressman eluded him with skill, and his rage and despair ultimately
+culminated in the supreme grievance that he could not even get near
+enough to the Congressman to tell him to go to Hades.
+
+This cabman should have felt the same desire to strangle this man who
+spoke from the sidewalk. He was plainly impotent; he was deprived of the
+power of looking out. There was nothing now for which to look out. The
+man on the sidewalk had dragged a corpse from a pond and said to it,
+
+"_Be_ more careful, can't you, or you'll drown?" My cabman pulled
+up and addressed a few words of reproach to the other. Three or four
+figures loomed into my cylinder, and as they appeared spoke to the
+author or the victim of the calamity in varied terms of displeasure.
+Each of these reproaches was couched in terms that defined the situation
+as impending. No blind man could have conceived that the precipitate
+phrase of the incident was absolutely closed.
+
+"_Look_ out now, cawn't you?" And there was nothing in his mind
+which approached these sentiments near enough to tell them to go to
+Hades.
+
+However, it needed only an ear to know presently that these expressions
+were formulae. It was merely the obligatory dance which the Indians had
+to perform before they went to war. These men had come to help, but as a
+regular and traditional preliminary they had first to display to this
+cabman their idea of his ignominy.
+
+The different thing in the affair was the silence of the victim. He
+retorted never a word. This, too, to me seemed to be an obedience to a
+recognized form. He was the visible criminal, if there was a criminal,
+and there was born of it a privilege for them.
+
+They unfastened the proper straps and hauled back the cab. They fetched
+a mat from some obscure place of succor, and pushed it carefully under
+the prostrate thing. From this panting, quivering mass they suddenly and
+emphatically reconstructed a horse. As each man turned to go his way he
+delivered some superior caution to the cabman while the latter buckled
+his harness.
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+There was to be noticed in this band of rescuers a young man in evening
+clothes and top-hat. Now, in America a young man in evening clothes and
+a top-hat may be a terrible object. He is not likely to do violence, but
+he is likely to do impassivity and indifference to the point where they
+become worse than violence. There are certain of the more idle phases of
+civilization to which America has not yet awakened--and it is a matter
+of no moment if she remains unaware. This matter of hats is one of them.
+I recall a legend recited to me by an esteemed friend, ex-Sheriff of Tin
+Can, Nevada. Jim Cortright, one of the best gun-fighters in town, went
+on a journey to Chicago, and while there he procured a top-hat. He was
+quite sure how Tin Can would accept this innovation, but he relied on
+the celerity with which he could get a six-shooter in action. One Sunday
+Jim examined his guns with his usual care, placed the top-hat on the
+back of his head, and sauntered coolly out into the streets of Tin Can.
+
+Now, while Jim was in Chicago some progressive citizen had decided that
+Tin Can needed a bowling alley. The carpenters went to work the next
+morning, and an order for the balls and pins was telegraphed to Denver.
+In three days the whole population was concentrated at the new alley
+betting their outfits and their lives.
+
+It has since been accounted very unfortunate that Jim Cortright had not
+learned of bowling alleys at his mother's knee or even later in the
+mines. This portion of his mind was singularly belated. He might have
+been an Apache for all he knew of bowling alleys.
+
+In his careless stroll through the town, his hands not far from his belt
+and his eyes going sideways in order to see who would shoot first at the
+hat, he came upon this long, low shanty where Tin Can was betting itself
+hoarse over a game between a team from the ranks of Excelsior Hose
+Company No. 1 and a team composed from the _habitues_ of the "Red
+Light" saloon.
+
+Jim, in blank ignorance of bowling phenomena, wandered casually through
+a little door into what must always be termed the wrong end of a bowling
+alley. Of course, he saw that the supreme moment had come. They were not
+only shooting at the hat and at him, but the low-down cusses were using
+the most extraordinary and hellish ammunition. Still, perfectly
+undaunted, however, Jim retorted with his two Colts, and killed three of
+the best bowlers in Tin Can.
+
+The ex-Sheriff vouched for this story. He himself had gone headlong
+through the door at the firing of the first shot with that simple
+courtesy which leads Western men to donate the fighters plenty of room.
+He said that afterwards the hat was the cause of a number of other
+fights, and that finally a delegation of prominent citizens was obliged
+to wait upon Cortright and ask him if he wouldn't take that thing away
+somewhere and bury it. Jim pointed out to them that it was his hat, and
+that he would regard it as a cowardly concession if he submitted to
+their dictation in the matter of his headgear. He added that he purposed
+to continue to wear his top-hat on every occasion when he happened to
+feel that the wearing of a top-hat was a joy and a solace to him.
+
+The delegation sadly retired, and announced to the town that Jim
+Cortright had openly defied them, and had declared his purpose of
+forcing his top-hat on the pained attention of Tin Can whenever he
+chose. Jim Cortright's plug hat became a phrase with considerable
+meaning to it.
+
+However, the whole affair ended in a great passionate outburst of
+popular revolution. Spike Foster was a friend of Cortright, and one day,
+when the latter was indisposed, Spike came to him and borrowed the hat.
+He had been drinking heavily at the "Red Light," and was in a supremely
+reckless mood. With the terrible gear hanging jauntily over his eye and
+his two guns drawn, he walked straight out into the middle of the square
+in front of the Palace Hotel, and drew the attention of all Tin Can by a
+blood-curdling imitation of the yowl of a mountain lion.
+
+This was when the long suffering populace arose as one man. The top-hat
+had been flaunted once too often. When Spike Foster's friends came to
+carry him away they found nearly a hundred and fifty men shooting busily
+at a mark--and the mark was the hat.
+
+My informant told me that he believed he owed his popularity in Tin Can,
+and subsequently his election to the distinguished office of Sheriff, to
+the active and prominent part he had taken in the proceedings.
+
+The enmity to the top-hat expressed by the convincing anecdote exists in
+the American West at present, I think, in the perfection of its
+strength; but disapproval is not now displayed by volleys from the
+citizens, save in the most aggravating cases. It is at present usually a
+matter of mere jibe and general contempt. The East, however, despite a
+great deal of kicking and gouging, is having the top-hat stuffed slowly
+and carefully down its throat, and there now exist many young men who
+consider that they could not successfully conduct their lives without
+this furniture.
+
+To speak generally, I should say that the headgear then supplies them
+with a kind of ferocity of indifference. There is fire, sword, and
+pestilence in the way they heed only themselves. Philosophy should
+always know that indifference is a militant thing. It batters down the
+walls of cities, and murders the women and children amid flames and the
+purloining of altar vessels. When it goes away it leaves smoking ruins,
+where lie citizens bayoneted through the throat. It is not a children's
+pastime like mere highway robbery.
+
+Consequently in America we may be much afraid of these young men. We
+dive down alleys so that we may not kowtow. It is a fearsome thing.
+
+Taught thus a deep fear of the top-hat in its effect upon youth, I was
+not prepared for the move of this particular young man when the cab-
+horse fell. In fact, I grovelled in my corner that I might not see the
+cruel stateliness of his passing. But in the meantime he had crossed the
+street, and contributed the strength of his back and some advice, as
+well as the formal address, to the cabman on the importance of looking
+out immediately.
+
+I felt that I was making a notable collection. I had a new kind of
+porter, a cylinder of vision, horses that could skate, and now I added a
+young man in a top-hat who would tacitly admit that the beings around
+him were alive. He was not walking a churchyard filled with inferior
+headstones. He was walking the world, where there were people, many
+people.
+
+But later I took him out of the collection. I thought he had rebelled
+against the manner of a class, but I soon discovered that the top-hat
+was not the property of a class. It was the property of rogues, clerks,
+theatrical agents, damned seducers, poor men, nobles, and others. In
+fact, it was the universal rigging. It was the only hat; all other forms
+might as well be named ham, or chops, or oysters. I retracted my
+admiration of the young man because he may have been merely a rogue.
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+There was a window whereat an enterprising man by dodging two placards
+and a calendar was entitled to view a young woman. She was dejectedly
+writing in a large book. She was ultimately induced to open the window a
+trifle. "What nyme, please?" she said wearily. I was surprised to hear
+this language from her. I had expected to be addressed on a submarine
+topic. I have seen shell fishes sadly writing in large books at the
+bottom of a gloomy acquarium who could not ask me what was my "nyme."
+
+At the end of the hall there was a grim portal marked "lift." I pressed
+an electric button and heard an answering tinkle in the heavens. There
+was an upholstered settle near at hand, and I discovered the reason. A
+deer-stalking peace drooped upon everything, and in it a man could
+invoke the passing of a lazy pageant of twenty years of his life. The
+dignity of a coffin being lowered into a grave surrounded the ultimate
+appearance of the lift. The expert we in America call the elevator-boy
+stepped from the car, took three paces forward, faced to attention and
+saluted. This elevator boy could not have been less than sixty years of
+age; a great white beard streamed towards his belt. I saw that the lift
+had been longer on its voyage than I had suspected.
+
+Later in our upward progress a natural event would have been an
+establishment of social relations. Two enemies imprisoned together
+during the still hours of a balloon journey would, I believe, suffer a
+mental amalgamation. The overhang of a common fate, a great principal
+fact, can make an equality and a truce between any pair. Yet, when I
+disembarked, a final survey of the grey beard made me recall that I had
+failed even to ask the boy whether he had not taken probably three trips
+on this lift.
+
+My windows overlooked simply a great sea of night, in which were
+swimming little gas fishes.
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+I have of late been led to reflect wistfully that many of the
+illustrators are very clever. In an impatience, which was donated by a
+certain economy of apparel, I went to a window to look upon day-lit
+London. There were the 'buses parading the streets with the miens of
+elephants There were the police looking precisely as I had been informed
+by the prints. There were the sandwich-men. There was almost everything.
+
+But the artists had not told me the sound of London. Now, in New York
+the artists are able to portray sound because in New York a dray is not
+a dray at all; it is a great potent noise hauled by two or more horses.
+When a magazine containing an illustration of a New York street is sent
+to me, I always know it beforehand. I can hear it coming through the
+mails. As I have said previously, this which I must call sound of London
+was to me only a silence.
+
+Later, in front of the hotel a cabman that I hailed said to me--"Are you
+gowing far, sir? I've got a byby here, and want to giv'er a bit of a
+blough." This impressed me as being probably a quotation from an early
+Egyptian poet, but I learned soon enough that the word "byby" was the
+name of some kind or condition of horse. The cabman's next remark was
+addressed to a boy who took a perilous dive between the byby's nose and
+a cab in front. "That's roight. Put your head in there and get it
+jammed--a whackin good place for it, I should think." Although the tone
+was low and circumspect, I have never heard a better off-handed
+declamation. Every word was cut clear of disreputable alliances with its
+neighbors. The whole thing was clean as a row of pewter mugs. The
+influence of indignation upon the voice caused me to reflect that we
+might devise a mechanical means of inflaming some in that constellation
+of mummers which is the heritage of the Anglo-Saxon race.
+
+Then I saw the drilling of vehicles by two policemen. There were four
+torrents converging at a point, and when four torrents converge at one
+point engineering experts buy tickets for another place.
+
+But here, again, it was drill, plain, simple drill. I must not falter in
+saying that I think the management of the traffic--as the phrase goes--
+to be distinctly illuminating and wonderful. The police were not ruffled
+and exasperated. They were as peaceful as two cows in a pasture.
+
+I can remember once remarking that mankind, with all its boasted modern
+progress, had not yet been able to invent a turnstile that will commute
+in fractions. I have now learned that 756 rights-of-way cannot operate
+simultaneously at one point. Right-of-way, like fighting women, requires
+space. Even two rights-of-way can make a scene which is only suited to
+the tastes of an ancient public.
+
+This truth was very evidently recognized. There was only one right-of-
+way at a time. The police did not look behind them to see if their
+orders were to be obeyed; they knew they were to be obeyed. These four
+torrents were drilling like four battalions. The two blue-cloth men
+maneuvered them in solemn, abiding peace, the silence of London.
+
+I thought at first that it was the intellect of the individual, but I
+looked at one constable closely and his face was as afire with
+intelligence as a flannel pin-cushion. It was not the police, and it was
+not the crowd. It was the police and the crowd. Again, it was drill.
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+I have never been in the habit of reading signs. I don't like to read
+signs. I have never met a man that liked to read signs. I once invented
+a creature who could play the piano with a hammer, and I mentioned him
+to a professor in Harvard University whose peculiarity was Sanscrit. He
+had the same interest in my invention that I have in a certain kind of
+mustard. And yet this mustard has become a part of me. Or, I have become
+a part of this mustard. Further, I know more of an ink, a brand of hams,
+a kind of cigarette, and a novelist than any man living. I went by train
+to see a friend in the country, and after passing through a patent
+mucilage, some more hams, a South African Investment Company, a Parisian
+millinery firm, and a comic journal, I alighted at a new and original
+kind of corset. On my return journey the road almost continuously ran
+through soap.
+
+I have accumulated superior information concerning these things, because
+I am at their mercy. If I want to know where I am I must find the
+definitive sign. This accounts for my glib use of the word mucilage, as
+well as the titles of other staples.
+
+I suppose even the Briton in mixing his life must sometimes consult the
+labels on 'buses and streets and stations, even as the chemist consults
+the labels on his bottles and boxes. A brave man would possibly affirm
+that this was suggested by the existence of the labels.
+
+The reason that I did not learn more about hams and mucilage in New York
+seems to me to be partly due to the fact that the British advertiser is
+allowed to exercise an unbridled strategy in his attack with his new
+corset or whatever upon the defensive public. He knows that the
+vulnerable point is the informatory sign which the citizen must, of
+course, use for his guidance, and then, with horse, foot, guns, corsets,
+hams, mucilage, investment companies, and all, he hurls himself at the
+point.
+
+Meanwhile I have discovered a way to make the Sanscrit scholar heed my
+creature who plays the piano with a hammer.
+
+
+
+
+THE SCOTCH EXPRESS
+
+
+The entrance to Euston Station is of itself sufficiently imposing. It
+is a high portico of brown stone, old and grim, in form a casual
+imitation, no doubt, of the front of the temple of Nike Apteros, with a
+recollection of the Egyptians proclaimed at the flanks. The frieze,
+where of old would prance an exuberant processional of gods, is, in this
+case, bare of decoration, but upon the epistyle is written in simple,
+stern letters the word "EUSTON." The legend reared high by the gloomy
+Pelagic columns stares down a wide avenue, In short, this entrance to a
+railway station does not in any way resemble the entrance to a railway
+station. It is more the front of some venerable bank. But it has another
+dignity, which is not born of form. To a great degree, it is to the
+English and to those who are in England the gate to Scotland.
+
+The little hansoms are continually speeding through the gate, dashing
+between the legs of the solemn temple; the four-wheelers, their tops
+crowded with luggage, roll in and out constantly, and the footways beat
+under the trampling of the people. Of course, there are the suburbs and
+a hundred towns along the line, and Liverpool, the beginning of an
+important sea-path to America, and the great manufacturing cities of the
+North; but if one stands at this gate in August particularly, one must
+note the number of men with gun-cases, the number of women who surely
+have Tam-o'-Shanters and plaids concealed within their luggage, ready
+for the moors. There is, during the latter part of that month, a
+wholesale flight from London to Scotland which recalls the July throngs
+leaving New York for the shore or the mountains.
+
+The hansoms, after passing through this impressive portal of the
+station, bowl smoothly across a courtyard which is in the center of the
+terminal hotel, an institution dear to most railways in Europe. The
+traveler lands amid a swarm of porters, and then proceeds cheerfully to
+take the customary trouble for his luggage. America provides a
+contrivance in a thousand situations where Europe provides a man or
+perhaps a number of men, and the work of our brass check is here done by
+porters, directed by the traveler himself. The men lack the memory of
+the check; the check never forgets its identity. Moreover, the European
+railways generously furnish the porters at the expense of the traveler.
+Nevertheless, if these men have not the invincible business precision of
+the check, and if they have to be tipped, it can be asserted for those
+who care that in Europe one-half of the populace waits on the other half
+most diligently and well.
+
+Against the masonry of a platform, under the vaulted arch of the train-
+house, lay a long string of coaches. They were painted white on the
+bulging part, which led halfway down from the top, and the bodies were a
+deep bottle-green. There was a group of porters placing luggage in the
+van, and a great many others were busy with the affairs of passengers,
+tossing smaller bits of luggage into the racks over the seats, and
+bustling here and there on short quests. The guard of the train, a tall
+man who resembled one of the first Napoleon's veterans, was caring for
+the distribution of passengers into the various bins. There were no
+second-class compartments; they were all third and first-class.
+
+The train was at this time engineless, but presently a railway "flier,"
+painted a glowing vermilion, slid modestly down and took its place at
+the head. The guard walked along the platform, and decisively closed
+each door. He wore a dark blue uniform thoroughly decorated with silver
+braid in the guise of leaves. The way of him gave to this business the
+importance of a ceremony. Meanwhile the fireman had climbed down from
+the cab and raised his hand, ready to transfer a signal to the driver,
+who stood looking at his watch. In the interval there had something
+progressed in the large signal box that stands guard at Euston. This
+high house contains many levers, standing in thick, shining ranks. It
+perfectly resembles an organ in some great church, if it were not that
+these rows of numbered and indexed handles typify something more acutely
+human than does a keyboard. It requires four men to play this organ-like
+thing, and the strains never cease. Night and day, day and night, these
+four men are walking to and fro, from this lever to that lever, and
+under their hands the great machine raises its endless hymn of a world
+at work, the fall and rise of signals and the clicking swing of
+switches.
+
+And so as the vermilion engine stood waiting and looking from the shadow
+of the curve-roofed station, a man in the signal house had played the
+notes that informed the engine of its freedom. The driver saw the fall
+of those proper semaphores which gave him liberty to speak to his steel
+friend. A certain combination in the economy of the London and
+Northwestern Railway, a combination which had spread from the men who
+sweep out the carriages through innumerable minds to the general manager
+himself, had resulted in the law that the vermilion engine, with its
+long string of white and bottle-green coaches, was to start forthwith
+toward Scotland.
+
+Presently the fireman, standing with his face toward the rear, let fall
+his hand. "All right," he said. The driver turned a wheel, and as the
+fireman slipped back, the train moved along the platform at the pace of
+a mouse. To those in the tranquil carriages this starting was probably
+as easy as the sliding of one's hand over a greased surface, but in the
+engine there was more to it. The monster roared suddenly and loudly, and
+sprang forward impetuously. A wrong-headed or maddened draft-horse will
+plunge in its collar sometimes when going up a hill. But this load of
+burdened carriages followed imperturbably at the gait of turtles. They
+were not to be stirred from their way of dignified exit by the impatient
+engine. The crowd of porters and transient people stood respectful. They
+looked with the indefinite wonder of the railway-station sight-seer upon
+the faces at the windows of the passing coaches. This train was off for
+Scotland. It had started from the home of one accent to the home of
+another accent. It was going from manner to manner, from habit to habit,
+and in the minds of these London spectators there surely floated dim
+images of the traditional kilts, the burring speech, the grouse, the
+canniness, the oat-meal, all the elements of a romantic Scotland.
+
+The train swung impressively around the signal-house, and headed up a
+brick-walled cut. In starting this heavy string of coaches, the engine
+breathed explosively. It gasped, and heaved, and bellowed; once, for a
+moment, the wheels spun on the rails, and a convulsive tremor shook the
+great steel frame.
+
+The train itself, however, moved through this deep cut in the body of
+London with coolness and precision, and the employees of the railway,
+knowing the train's mission, tacitly presented arms at its passing. To
+the travelers in the carriages, the suburbs of London must have been one
+long monotony of carefully made walls of stone or brick. But after the
+hill was climbed, the train fled through pictures of red habitations of
+men on a green earth.
+
+But the noise in the cab did not greatly change its measure. Even though
+the speed was now high, the tremendous thumping to be heard in the cab
+was as alive with strained effort and as slow in beat as the breathing
+of a half-drowned man. At the side of the track, for instance, the sound
+doubtless would strike the ear in the familiar succession of incredibly
+rapid puffs; but in the cab itself, this land-racer breathes very like
+its friend, the marine engine. Everybody who has spent time on shipboard
+has forever in his head a reminiscence of the steady and methodical
+pounding of the engines, and perhaps it is curious that this relative
+which can whirl over the land at such a pace, breathes in the leisurely
+tones that a man heeds when he lies awake at night in his berth.
+
+There had been no fog in London, but here on the edge of the city a
+heavy wind was blowing, and the driver leaned aside and yelled that it
+was a very bad day for traveling on an engine. The engine-cabs of
+England, as of all Europe, are seldom made for the comfort of the men.
+One finds very often this apparent disregard for the man who does the
+work--this indifference to the man who occupies a position which for the
+exercise of temperance, of courage, of honesty, has no equal at the
+altitude of prime ministers. The American engineer is the gilded
+occupant of a salon in comparison with his brother in Europe. The man
+who was guiding this five-hundred-ton bolt, aimed by the officials of
+the railway at Scotland, could not have been as comfortable as a shrill
+gibbering boatman of the Orient. The narrow and bare bench at his side
+of the cab was not directly intended for his use, because it was so low
+that he would be prevented by it from looking out of the ship's port-
+hole which served him as a window. The fireman, on his side, had other
+difficulties. His legs would have had to straggle over some pipes at the
+only spot where there was a prospect, and the builders had also
+strategically placed a large steel bolt. Of course it is plain that the
+companies consistently believe that the men will do their work better if
+they are kept standing. The roof of the cab was not altogether a roof.
+It was merely a projection of two feet of metal from the bulkhead which
+formed the front of the cab. There were practically no sides to it, and
+the large cinders from the soft coal whirled around in sheets. From time
+to time the driver took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his
+blinking eyes.
+
+London was now well to the rear. The vermilion engine had been for some
+time flying like the wind. This train averages, between London and
+Carlisle forty-nine and nine-tenth miles an hour. It is a distance of
+299 miles. There is one stop. It occurs at Crewe, and endures five
+minutes. In consequence, the block signals flashed by seemingly at the
+end of the moment in which they were sighted.
+
+There can be no question of the statement that the road-beds of English
+railways are at present immeasurably superior to the American road-beds.
+Of course there is a clear reason. It is known to every traveler that
+peoples of the Continent of Europe have no right at all to own railways.
+Those lines of travel are too childish and trivial for expression. A
+correct fate would deprive the Continent of its railways, and give them
+to somebody who knew about them.
+
+The continental idea of a railway is to surround a mass of machinery
+with forty rings of ultra-military law, and then they believe they have
+one complete. The Americans and the English are the railway peoples.
+That our road-beds are poorer than the English road-beds is because of
+the fact that we were suddenly obliged to build thousands upon thousands
+of miles of railway, and the English were obliged to build slowly tens
+upon tens of miles. A road-bed from New York to San Francisco, with
+stations, bridges, and crossings of the kind that the London and
+Northwestern owns from London to Glasgow, would cost a sum large enough
+to support the German army for a term of years. The whole way is
+constructed with the care that inspired the creators of some of our now
+obsolete forts along the Atlantic coast.
+
+An American engineer, with his knowledge of the difficulties he had to
+encounter--the wide rivers with variable banks, the mountain chains,
+perhaps the long spaces of absolute desert; in fact, all the
+perplexities of a vast and somewhat new country--would not dare spend a
+respectable portion of his allowance on seventy feet of granite wall
+over a gully, when he knew he could make an embankment with little cost
+by heaving up the dirt and stones from here and there. But the English
+road is all made in the pattern by which the Romans built their
+highways. After England is dead, savants will find narrow streaks of
+masonry leading from ruin to ruin. Of course this does not always seem
+convincingly admirable. It sometimes resembles energy poured into a rat-
+hole. There is a vale between expediency and the convenience of
+posterity, a mid-ground which enables men surely to benefit the
+hereafter people by valiantly advancing the present; and the point is
+that, if some laborers live in unhealthy tenements in Cornwall, one is
+likely to view with incomplete satisfaction the record of long and
+patient labor and thought displayed by an eight-foot drain for a
+nonexistent, impossible rivulet in the North. This sentence does not
+sound strictly fair, but the meaning one wishes to convey is that if an
+English company spies in its dream the ghost of an ancient valley that
+later becomes a hill, it would construct for it a magnificent steel
+trestle, and consider that a duty had been performed in proper
+accordance with the company's conscience. But after all is said of it,
+the accidents and the miles of railway operated in England are not in
+proportion to the accidents and the miles of railway operated in the
+United States. The reason can be divided into three parts--older
+conditions, superior caution, the road-bed. And of these, the greatest
+is older conditions.
+
+In this flight toward Scotland one seldom encountered a grade crossing.
+In nine cases of ten there was either a bridge or a tunnel. The
+platforms of even the remote country stations were all of ponderous
+masonry in contrast to our constructions of planking. There was always
+to be seen, as we thundered toward a station of this kind, a number of
+porters in uniform, who requested the retreat of any one who had not the
+wit to give us plenty of room. And then, as the shrill warning of the
+whistle pierced even the uproar that was about us, came the wild joy of
+the rush past a station. It was something in the nature of a triumphal
+procession conducted at thrilling speed. Perhaps there was a curve of
+infinite grace, a sudden hollow explosive effect made by the passing of
+a signal-box that was close to the track, and then the deadly lunge to
+shave the edge of a long platform. There were always a number of people
+standing afar, with their eyes riveted upon this projectile, and to be
+on the engine was to feel their interest and admiration in the terror
+and grandeur of this sweep. A boy allowed to ride with the driver of the
+band-wagon as a circus parade winds through one of our village streets
+could not exceed for egotism the temper of a new man in the cab of a
+train like this one. This valkyric journey on the back of the vermilion
+engine, with the shouting of the wind, the deep, mighty panting of the
+steed, the gray blur at the track-side, the flowing quicksilver ribbon
+of the other rails, the sudden clash as a switch intersects, all the din
+and fury of this ride, was of a splendor that caused one to look abroad
+at the quiet, green landscape and believe that it was of a phlegm quiet
+beyond patience. It should have been dark, rain-shot, and windy; thunder
+should have rolled across its sky.
+
+It seemed, somehow, that if the driver should for a moment take his
+hands from his engine, it might swerve from the track as a horse from
+the road. Once, indeed, as he stood wiping his fingers on a bit of
+waste, there must have been something ludicrous in the way the solitary
+passenger regarded him. Without those finely firm hands on the bridle,
+the engine might rear and bolt for the pleasant farms lying in the
+sunshine at either side.
+
+This driver was worth contemplation. He was simply a quiet, middle-aged
+man, bearded, and with the little wrinkles of habitual geniality and
+kindliness spreading from the eyes toward the temple, who stood at his
+post always gazing out, through his round window, while, from time to
+time, his hands went from here to there over his levers. He seldom
+changed either attitude or expression. There surely is no engine-driver
+who does not feel the beauty of the business, but the emotion lies deep,
+and mainly inarticulate, as it does in the mind of a man who has
+experienced a good and beautiful wife for many years. This driver's face
+displayed nothing but the cool sanity of a man whose thought was buried
+intelligently in his business. If there was any fierce drama in it,
+there was no sign upon him. He was so lost in dreams of speed and
+signals and steam, that one speculated if the wonder of his tempestuous
+charge and its career over England touched him, this impassive rider of
+a fiery thing.
+
+It should be a well-known fact that, all over the world, the engine-
+driver is the finest type of man that is grown. He is the pick of the
+earth. He is altogether more worthy than the soldier, and better than
+the men who move on the sea in ships. He is not paid too much; nor do
+his glories weight his brow; but for outright performance, carried on
+constantly, coolly, and without elation, by a temperate, honest, clear-
+minded man, he is the further point. And so the lone human at his
+station in a cab, guarding money, lives, and the honor of the road, is a
+beautiful sight. The whole thing is aesthetic. The fireman presents the
+same charm, but in a less degree, in that he is bound to appear as an
+apprentice to the finished manhood of the driver. In his eyes, turned
+always in question and confidence toward his superior, one finds this
+quality; but his aspirations are so direct that one sees the same type
+in evolution.
+
+There may be a popular idea that the fireman's principal function is to
+hang his head out of the cab and sight interesting objects in the
+landscape. As a matter of fact, he is always at work. The dragon is
+insatiate. The fireman is continually swinging open the furnace-door,
+whereat a red shine flows out upon the floor of the cab, and shoveling
+in immense mouthfuls of coal to a fire that is almost diabolic in its
+madness. The feeding, feeding, feeding goes on until it appears as if it
+is the muscles of the fireman's arms that are speeding the long train.
+An engine running over sixty-five miles an hour, with 500 tons to drag,
+has an appetite in proportion to this task.
+
+View of the clear-shining English scenery is often interrupted between
+London and Crew by long and short tunnels. The first one was
+disconcerting. Suddenly one knew that the train was shooting toward a
+black mouth in the hills. It swiftly yawned wider, and then in a moment
+the engine dived into a place inhabitated by every demon of wind and
+noise. The speed had not been checked, and the uproar was so great that
+in effect one was simply standing at the center of a vast, black-walled
+sphere. The tubular construction which one's reason proclaimed had no
+meaning at all. It was a black sphere, alive with shrieks. But then on
+the surface of it there was to be seen a little needle-point of light,
+and this widened to a detail of unreal landscape. It was the world; the
+train was going to escape from this cauldron, this abyss of howling
+darkness. If a man looks through the brilliant water of a tropical pool,
+he can sometimes see coloring the marvels at the bottom the blue that
+was on the sky and the green that was on the foliage of this detail. And
+the picture shimmered in the heat-rays of a new and remarkable sun. It
+was when the train bolted out into the open air that one knew that it
+was his own earth.
+
+Once train met train in a tunnel. Upon the painting in the perfectly
+circular frame formed by the mouth there appeared a black square with
+sparks bursting from it. This square expanded until it hid everything,
+and a moment later came the crash of the passing. It was enough to make
+a man lose his sense of balance. It was a momentary inferno when the
+fireman opened the furnace door and was bathed in blood-red light as he
+fed the fires.
+
+The effect of a tunnel varied when there was a curve in it. One was
+merely whirling then heels over head, apparently in the dark, echoing
+bowels of the earth. There was no needle-point of light to which one's
+eyes clung as to a star.
+
+From London to Crew, the stern arm of the semaphore never made the train
+pause even for an instant. There was always a clear track. It was great
+to see, far in the distance, a goods train whooping smokily for the
+north of England on one of the four tracks. The overtaking of such a
+train was a thing of magnificent nothing for the long-strided engine,
+and as the flying express passed its weaker brother, one heard one or
+two feeble and immature puffs from the other engine, saw the fireman
+wave his hand to his luckier fellow, saw a string of foolish, clanking
+flat-cars, their freights covered with tarpaulins, and then the train
+was lost to the rear.
+
+The driver twisted his wheel and worked some levers, and the rhythmical
+chunking of the engine gradually ceased. Gliding at a speed that was
+still high, the train curved to the left, and swung down a sharp
+incline, to move with an imperial dignity through the railway yard at
+Rugby. There was a maze of switches, innumerable engines noisily pushing
+cars here and there, crowds of workmen who turned to look, a sinuous
+curve around the long train-shed, whose high wall resounded with the
+rumble of the passing express; and then, almost immediately, it seemed,
+came the open country again. Rugby had been a dream which one could
+properly doubt. At last the relaxed engine, with the same majesty of
+ease, swung into the high-roofed station at Crewe, and stopped on a
+platform lined with porters and citizens. There was instant bustle, and
+in the interest of the moment no one seemed particularly to notice the
+tired vermilion engine being led away.
+
+There is a five-minute stop at Crewe. A tandem of engines slip up, and
+buckled fast to the train for the journey to Carlisle. In the meantime,
+all the regulation items of peace and comfort had happened on the train
+itself. The dining-car was in the center of the train. It was divided
+into two parts, the one being a dining-room for first-class passengers,
+and the other a dining-room for the third-class passengers. They were
+separated by the kitchens and the larder. The engine, with all its
+rioting and roaring, had dragged to Crewe a car in which numbers of
+passengers were lunching in a tranquility that was almost domestic, on
+an average menu of a chop and potatoes, a salad, cheese, and a bottle of
+beer. Betimes they watched through the windows the great chimney-marked
+towns of northern England. They were waited upon by a young man of
+London, who was supported by a lad who resembled an American bell-boy.
+The rather elaborate menu and service of the Pullman dining-car is not
+known in England or on the Continent. Warmed roast beef is the exact
+symbol of a European dinner, when one is traveling on a railway.
+
+This express is named, both by the public and the company, the "Corridor
+Train," because a coach with a corridor is an unusual thing in England,
+and so the title has a distinctive meaning. Of course, in America, where
+there is no car which has not what we call an aisle, it would define
+nothing. The corridors are all at one side of the car. Doors open thence
+to little compartments made to seat four, or perhaps six, persons. The
+first-class carriages are very comfortable indeed, being heavily
+upholstered in dark, hard-wearing stuffs, with a bulging rest for the
+head. The third-class accommodations on this train are almost as
+comfortable as the first-class, and attract a kind of people that are
+not usually seen traveling third-class in Europe. Many people sacrifice
+their habit, in the matter of this train, to the fine conditions of the
+lower fare.
+
+One of the feats of the train is an electric button in each compartment.
+Commonly an electric button is placed high on the side of the carriage
+as an alarm signal, and it is unlawful to push it unless one is in
+serious need of assistance from the guard. But these bells also rang in
+the dining-car, and were supposed to open negotiations for tea or
+whatever. A new function has been projected on an ancient custom. No
+genius has yet appeared to separate these two meanings. Each bell rings
+an alarm and a bid for tea or whatever. It is perfect in theory then
+that, if one rings for tea, the guard comes to interrupt the murder, and
+that if one is being murdered, the attendant appears with tea. At any
+rate, the guard was forever being called from his reports and his
+comfortable seat in the forward end of the luggage-van by thrilling
+alarms. He often prowled the length of the train with hardihood and
+determination, merely to meet a request for a sandwich.
+
+The train entered Carlisle at the beginning of twilight. This is the
+border town, and an engine of the Caledonian Railway, manned by two men
+of broad speech, came to take the place of the tandem. The engine of
+these men of the North was much smaller than the others, but her cab was
+much larger, and would be a fair shelter on a stormy night. They had
+also built seats with hooks by which they hang them to the rail, and
+thus are still enabled to see through the round windows without
+dislocating their necks. All the human parts of the cab were covered
+with oilcloth. The wind that swirled from the dim twilight horizon made
+the warm glow from the furnace to be a grateful thing.
+
+As the train shot out of Carlisle, a glance backward could learn of the
+faint, yellow blocks of light from the carriages marked on the dimmed
+ground. The signals were now lamps, and shone palely against the sky.
+The express was entering night as if night were Scotland.
+
+There was a long toil to the summit of the hills, and then began the
+booming ride down the slope. There were many curves. Sometimes could be
+seen two or three signal lights at one time, twisting off in some new
+direction. Minus the lights and some yards of glistening rails, Scotland
+was only a blend of black and weird shapes. Forests which one could
+hardly imagine as weltering in the dewy placidity of evening sank to the
+rear as if the gods had bade them. The dark loom of a house quickly
+dissolved before the eyes. A station with its lamps became a broad
+yellow band that, to a deficient sense, was only a few yards in length.
+Below, in a deep valley, a silver glare on the waters of a river made
+equal time with the train. Signals appeared, grew, and vanished. In the
+wind and the mystery of the night, it was like sailing in an enchanted
+gloom. The vague profiles of hills ran like snakes across the somber
+sky. A strange shape boldly and formidably confronted the train, and
+then melted to a long dash of track as clean as sword-blades.
+
+The vicinity of Glasgow is unmistakable. The flames of pauseless
+industries are here and there marked on the distance. Vast factories
+stand close to the track, and reaching chimneys emit roseate flames. At
+last one may see upon a wall the strong reflection from furnaces, and
+against it the impish and inky figures of workingmen. A long, prison-
+like row of tenements, not at all resembling London, but in one way
+resembling New York, appeared to the left, and then sank out of sight
+like a phantom.
+
+At last the driver stopped the brave effort of his engine The 400 miles
+were come to the edge. The average speed of forty-nine and one-third
+miles each hour had been made, and it remained only to glide with the
+hauteur of a great express through the yard and into the station at
+Glasgow.
+
+A wide and splendid collection of signal lamps flowed toward the engine.
+With delicacy and care the train clanked over some switches, passes the
+signals, and then there shone a great blaze of arc-lamps, defining the
+wide sweep of the station roof. Smoothly, proudly, with all that vast
+dignity which had surrounded its exit from London, the express moved
+along its platform. It was the entrance into a gorgeous drawing-room of
+a man that was sure of everything.
+
+The porters and the people crowded forward. In their minds there may
+have floated dim images of the traditional music-halls, the bobbies, the
+'buses, the 'Arrys and 'Arriets, the swells of London.
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Men, Women, and Boats, by Stephen Crane
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Men, Women, and Boats, by Stephen Crane
+#5 in our series by Stephen Crane
+
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+*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
+
+
+Title: Men, Women, and Boats
+
+Author: Stephen Crane
+
+Release Date: January, 2005 [EBook #7239]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on March 30, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-Latin-1
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MEN, WOMEN, AND BOATS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by John Bilderback, Eric Eldred, Charles Franks
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+MEN, WOMEN, AND BOATS
+
+By Stephen Crane
+
+Edited With an Introduction by Vincent Starrett
+
+
+
+
+NOTE
+
+A Number of the tales and sketches here brought together appear now for
+the first time between covers; others for the first time between covers
+in this country. All have been gathered from out-of-print volumes and
+old magazine files.
+
+"The Open Boat," one of Stephen Crane's finest stories, is used with the
+courteous permission of Doubleday, Page & Co., holders of the copyright.
+Its companion masterpiece, "The Blue Hotel," because of copyright
+complications, has had to be omitted, greatly to the regret of the
+editor.
+
+After the death of Stephen Crane, a haphazard and undiscriminating
+gathering of his earlier tales and sketches appeared in London under the
+misleading title, "Last Words." From this volume, now rarely met with, a
+number of characteristic minor works have been selected, and these will
+be new to Crane's American admirers; as follows: "The Reluctant
+Voyagers," "The End of the Battle," "The Upturned Face," "An Episode of
+War," "A Desertion," "Four Men in a Cave," "The Mesmeric Mountain,"
+"London Impressions," "The Snake."
+
+Three of our present collection, printed by arrangement, appeared in the
+London (1898) edition of "The Open Boat and Other Stories," published by
+William Heinemann, but did not occur in the American volume of that
+title. They are "An Experiment in Misery," "The Duel that was not
+Fought," and "The Pace of Youth."
+
+For the rest, "A Dark Brown Dog," "A Tent in Agony," and "The Scotch
+Express," are here printed for the first time in a book.
+
+For the general title of the present collection, the editor alone is
+responsible.
+
+V. S.
+
+
+
+MEN, WOMEN AND BOATS
+
+CONTENTS
+
+STEPHEN CRANE: _An Estimate_
+
+THE OPEN BOAT
+
+THE RELUCTANT VOYAGERS
+
+THE END OF THE BATTLE
+
+THE UPTURNED FACE
+
+AN EPISODE OF WAR
+
+AN EXPERIMENT IN MISERY
+
+THE DUEL THAT WAS NOT FOUGHT
+
+A DESERTION
+
+THE DARK-BROWN DOG
+
+THE PACE OF YOUTH
+
+SULLIVAN COUNTY SKETCHES
+
+  A TENT IN AGONY
+
+  FOUR MEN IN A CAVE
+
+  THE MESMERIC MOUNTAIN
+
+THE SNAKE
+
+LONDON IMPRESSIONS
+
+THE SCOTCH EXPRESS
+
+
+
+
+STEPHEN CRANE: _AN ESTIMATE_
+
+
+It hardly profits us to conjecture what Stephen Crane might have written
+about the World War had he lived. Certainly, he would have been in it,
+in one capacity or another. No man had a greater talent for war and
+personal adventure, nor a finer art in describing it. Few writers of
+recent times could so well describe the poetry of motion as manifested
+in the surge and flow of battle, or so well depict the isolated deed of
+heroism in its stark simplicity and terror.
+
+To such an undertaking as Henri Barbusse's "Under Fire," that powerful,
+brutal book, Crane would have brought an analytical genius almost
+clairvoyant. He possessed an uncanny vision; a descriptive ability
+photographic in its clarity and its care for minutiae--yet
+unphotographic in that the big central thing often is omitted, to be
+felt rather than seen in the occult suggestion of detail. Crane would
+have seen and depicted the grisly horror of it all, as did Barbusse, but
+also he would have seen the glory and the ecstasy and the wonder of it,
+and over that his poetry would have been spread.
+
+While Stephen Crane was an excellent psychologist, he was also a true
+poet. Frequently his prose was finer poetry than his deliberate essays
+in poesy. His most famous book, "The Red Badge of Courage," is
+essentially a psychological study, a delicate clinical dissection of the
+soul of a recruit, but it is also a _tour de force_ of the
+imagination. When he wrote the book he had never seen a battle: he had
+to place himself in the situation of another. Years later, when he came
+out of the Greco-Turkish _fracas_, he remarked to a friend: "'The
+Red Badge' is all right."
+
+Written by a youth who had scarcely passed his majority, this book has
+been compared with Tolstoy's "Sebastopol" and Zola's "La Débâcle," and
+with some of the short stories of Ambrose Bierce. The comparison with
+Bierce's work is legitimate; with the other books, I think, less so.
+Tolstoy and Zola see none of the traditional beauty of battle; they
+apply themselves to a devoted--almost obscene--study of corpses and
+carnage generally; and they lack the American's instinct for the rowdy
+commonplace, the natural, the irreverent, which so materially aids his
+realism. In "The Red Badge of Courage" invariably the tone is kept down
+where one expects a height: the most heroic deeds are accomplished with
+studied awkwardness.
+
+Crane was an obscure free-lance when he wrote this book. The effort, he
+says, somewhere, "was born of pain--despair, almost." It was a better
+piece of work, however, for that very reason, as Crane knew. It is far
+from flawless. It has been remarked that it bristles with as many
+grammatical errors as with bayonets; but it is a big canvas, and I am
+certain that many of Crane's deviations from the rules of polite
+rhetoric were deliberate experiments, looking to effect--effect which,
+frequently, he gained.
+
+Stephen Crane "arrived" with this book. There are, of course, many who
+never have heard of him, to this day, but there was a time when he was
+very much talked of. That was in the middle nineties, following
+publication of "The Red Badge of Courage," although even before that he
+had occasioned a brief flurry with his weird collection of poems called
+"The Black Riders and Other Lines." He was highly praised, and highly
+abused and laughed at; but he seemed to be "made." We have largely
+forgotten since. It is a way we have.
+
+Personally, I prefer his short stories to his novels and his poems;
+those, for instance, contained in "The Open Boat," in "Wounds in the
+Rain," and in "The Monster." The title-story in that first collection is
+perhaps his finest piece of work. Yet what is it? A truthful record of
+an adventure of his own in the filibustering days that preceded our war
+with Spain; the faithful narrative of the voyage of an open boat, manned
+by a handful of shipwrecked men. But Captain Bligh's account of
+_his_ small boat journey, after he had been sent adrift by the
+mutineers of the _Bounty_, seems tame in comparison, although of
+the two the English sailor's voyage was the more perilous.
+
+In "The Open Boat" Crane again gains his effects by keeping down the
+tone where another writer might have attempted "fine writing" and have
+been lost. In it perhaps is most strikingly evident the poetic cadences
+of his prose: its rhythmic, monotonous flow is the flow of the gray
+water that laps at the sides of the boat, that rises and recedes in
+cruel waves, "like little pointed rocks." It is a desolate picture, and
+the tale is one of our greatest short stories. In the other tales that
+go to make up the volume are wild, exotic glimpses of Latin-America. I
+doubt whether the color and spirit of that region have been better
+rendered than in Stephen Crane's curious, distorted, staccato sentences.
+
+"War Stories" is the laconic sub-title of "Wounds in the Rain." It was
+not war on a grand scale that Crane saw in the Spanish-American
+complication, in which he participated as a war correspondent; no such
+war as the recent horror. But the occasions for personal heroism were no
+fewer than always, and the opportunities for the exercise of such powers
+of trained and appreciative understanding and sympathy as Crane
+possessed, were abundant. For the most part, these tales are episodic,
+reports of isolated instances--the profanely humorous experiences of
+correspondents, the magnificent courage of signalmen under fire, the
+forgotten adventure of a converted yacht--but all are instinct with the
+red fever of war, and are backgrounded with the choking smoke of battle.
+Never again did Crane attempt the large canvas of "The Red Badge of
+Courage." Before he had seen war, he imagined its immensity and painted
+it with the fury and fidelity of a Verestchagin; when he was its
+familiar, he singled out its minor, crimson passages for briefer but no
+less careful delineation.
+
+In this book, again, his sense of the poetry of motion is vividly
+evident. We see men going into action, wave on wave, or in scattering
+charges; we hear the clink of their accoutrements and their breath
+whistling through their teeth. They are not men going into action at
+all, but men going about their business, which at the moment happens to
+be the capture of a trench. They are neither heroes nor cowards. Their
+faces reflect no particular emotion save, perhaps, a desire to get
+somewhere. They are a line of men running for a train, or following a
+fire engine, or charging a trench. It is a relentless picture, ever
+changing, ever the same. But it contains poetry, too, in rich, memorable
+passages.
+
+In "The Monster and Other Stories," there is a tale called "The Blue
+Hotel". A Swede, its central figure, toward the end manages to get
+himself murdered. Crane's description of it is just as casual as that.
+The story fills a dozen pages of the book; but the social injustice of
+the whole world is hinted in that space; the upside-downness of
+creation, right prostrate, wrong triumphant,--a mad, crazy world. The
+incident of the murdered Swede is just part of the backwash of it all,
+but it is an illuminating fragment. The Swede was slain, not by the
+gambler whose knife pierced his thick hide: he was the victim of a
+condition for which he was no more to blame than the man who stabbed
+him. Stephen Crane thus speaks through the lips of one of the
+characters:--
+
+    "We are all in it! This poor gambler isn't even
+    a noun. He is a kind of an adverb. Every sin is
+    the result of a collaboration. We, five of us, have
+    collaborated in the murder of this Swede. Usually
+    there are from a dozen to forty women really involved
+    in every murder, but in this case it seems
+    to be only five men--you, I, Johnnie, Old Scully,
+    and that fool of an unfortunate gambler came
+    merely as a culmination, the apex of a human movement,
+    and gets all the punishment."
+
+And then this typical and arresting piece of irony:--
+
+    "The corpse of the Swede, alone in the saloon,
+    had its eyes fixed upon a dreadful legend that
+    dwelt atop of the cash-machine: 'This registers the
+    amount of your purchase.'"
+
+In "The Monster," the ignorance, prejudice and cruelty of an entire
+community are sharply focussed. The realism is painful; one blushes for
+mankind. But while this story really belongs in the volume called
+"Whilomville Stories," it is properly left out of that series. The
+Whilomville stories are pure comedy, and "The Monster" is a hideous
+tragedy.
+
+Whilomville is any obscure little village one may happen to think of. To
+write of it with such sympathy and understanding, Crane must have done
+some remarkable listening in Boyville. The truth is, of course, he was a
+boy himself--"a wonderful boy," somebody called him--and was possessed
+of the boy mind. These tales are chiefly funny because they are so true
+--boy stories written for adults; a child, I suppose, would find them
+dull. In none of his tales is his curious understanding of human moods
+and emotions better shown.
+
+A stupid critic once pointed out that Crane, in his search for striking
+effects, had been led into "frequent neglect of the time-hallowed rights
+of certain words," and that in his pursuit of color he "falls
+occasionally into almost ludicrous mishap." The smug pedantry of the
+quoted lines is sufficient answer to the charges, but in support of
+these assertions the critic quoted certain passages and phrases. He
+objected to cheeks "scarred" by tears, to "dauntless" statues, and to
+"terror-stricken" wagons. The very touches of poetic impressionism that
+largely make for Crane's greatness, are cited to prove him an ignoramus.
+There is the finest of poetic imagery in the suggestions subtly conveyed
+by Crane's tricky adjectives, the use of which was as deliberate with
+him as his choice of a subject. But Crane was an imagist before our
+modern imagists were known.
+
+This unconventional use of adjectives is marked in the Whilomville
+tales. In one of them Crane refers to the "solemn odor of burning
+turnips." It is the most nearly perfect characterization of burning
+turnips conceivable: can anyone improve upon that "solemn odor"?
+
+Stephen Crane's first venture was "Maggie: A Girl of the Streets." It
+was, I believe, the first hint of naturalism in American letters. It was
+not a best-seller; it offers no solution of life; it is an episodic bit
+of slum fiction, ending with the tragic finality of a Greek drama. It
+is a skeleton of a novel rather than a novel, but it is a powerful
+outline, written about a life Crane had learned to know as a newspaper
+reporter in New York. It is a singularly fine piece of analysis, or a
+bit of extraordinarily faithful reporting, as one may prefer; but not a
+few French and Russian writers have failed to accomplish in two volumes
+what Crane achieved in two hundred pages. In the same category is
+"George's Mother," a triumph of inconsequential detail piling up with a
+cumulative effect quite overwhelming.
+
+Crane published two volumes of poetry--"The Black Riders" and "War is
+Kind." Their appearance in print was jeeringly hailed; yet Crane was
+only pioneering in the free verse that is today, if not definitely
+accepted, at least more than tolerated. I like the following love poem
+as well as any rhymed and conventionally metrical ballad that I know:--
+
+  "Should the wide world roll away,
+  Leaving black terror,
+  Limitless night,
+  Nor God, nor man, nor place to stand
+  Would be to me essential,
+  If thou and thy white arms were there
+  And the fall to doom a long way."
+
+"If war be kind," wrote a clever reviewer, when the second volume
+appeared, "then Crane's verse may be poetry, Beardsley's black and white
+creations may be art, and this may be called a book";--a smart summing
+up that is cherished by cataloguers to this day, in describing the
+volume for collectors. Beardsley needs no defenders, and it is fairly
+certain that the clever reviewer had not read the book, for certainly
+Crane had no illusions about the kindness of war. The title-poem of the
+volume is an amazingly beautiful satire which answers all criticism.
+
+  "Do not weep, maiden, for war is kind.
+  Because your lover threw wild hands toward the sky
+  And the affrighted steed ran on alone,
+  Do not weep.
+  War is kind.
+
+  "Hoarse, booming drums of the regiment,
+  Little souls who thirst for fight,
+  These men were born to drill and die.
+  The unexplained glory flies above them,
+  Great is the battle-god, and his kingdom--
+  A field where a thousand corpses lie.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  "Mother whose heart hung humble as a button
+  On the bright splendid shroud of your son,
+  Do not weep.
+  War is kind."
+
+Poor Stephen Crane! Like most geniuses, he had his weaknesses and his
+failings; like many, if not most, geniuses, he was ill. He died of
+tuberculosis, tragically young. But what a comrade he must have been,
+with his extraordinary vision, his keen, sardonic comment, his
+fearlessness and his failings!
+
+Just a glimpse of Crane's last days is afforded by a letter written from
+England by Robert Barr, his friend--Robert Barr, who collaborated with
+Crane in "The 0' Ruddy," a rollicking tale of old Ireland, or, rather,
+who completed it at Crane's death, to satisfy his friend's earnest
+request. The letter is dated from Hillhead, Woldingham, Surrey, June 8,
+1900, and runs as follows:--
+
+    "My Dear ----
+
+    "I was delighted to hear from you, and was much
+    interested to see the article on Stephen Crane you
+    sent me. It seems to me the harsh judgment of an
+    unappreciative, commonplace person on a man of
+    genius. Stephen had many qualities which lent
+    themselves to misapprehension, but at the core he
+    was the finest of men, generous to a fault, with
+    something of the old-time recklessness which used
+    to gather in the ancient literary taverns of London.
+    I always fancied that Edgar Allan Poe revisited the
+    earth as Stephen Crane, trying again, succeeding
+    again, failing again, and dying ten years sooner
+    than he did on the other occasion of his stay on
+    earth.
+
+    "When your letter came I had just returned from
+    Dover, where I stayed four days to see Crane off
+    for the Black Forest. There was a thin thread of
+    hope that he might recover, but to me he looked like
+    a man already dead. When he spoke, or, rather,
+    whispered, there was all the accustomed humor in
+    his sayings. I said to him that I would go over to
+    the Schwarzwald in a few weeks, when he was getting
+    better, and that we would take some convalescent
+    rambles together. As his wife was listening
+    he said faintly: 'I'll look forward to that,' but he
+    smiled at me, and winked slowly, as much as to say:
+    'You damned humbug, you know I'll take no more
+    rambles in this world.' Then, as if the train of
+    thought suggested what was looked on before as the
+    crisis of his illness, he murmured: 'Robert, when
+    you come to the hedge--that we must all go over--
+    it isn't bad. You feel sleepy--and--you don't
+    care. Just a little dreamy curiosity--which world
+    you're really in--that's all.'
+
+    "To-morrow, Saturday, the 9th, I go again to
+    Dover to meet his body. He will rest for a little
+    while in England, a country that was always good
+    to him, then to America, and his journey will be
+    ended.
+
+    "I've got the unfinished manuscript of his last
+    novel here beside me, a rollicking Irish tale, different
+    from anything he ever wrote before. Stephen
+    thought I was the only person who could finish it,
+    and he was too ill for me to refuse. I don't know
+    what to do about the matter, for I never could work
+    up another man's ideas. Even your vivid imagination
+    could hardly conjecture anything more ghastly
+    than the dying man, lying by an open window overlooking
+    the English channel, relating in a sepulchral
+    whisper the comic situations of his humorous hero
+    so that I might take up the thread of his story.
+
+    "From the window beside which I write this I
+    can see down in the valley Ravensbrook House,
+    where Crane used to live and where Harold Frederic,
+    he and I spent many a merry night together. When
+    the Romans occupied Britain, some of their legions,
+    parched with thirst, were wandering about these dry
+    hills with the chance of finding water or perishing.
+    They watched the ravens, and so came to the stream
+    which rises under my place and flows past Stephen's
+    former home; hence the name, Ravensbrook.
+
+    "It seems a strange coincidence that the greatest
+    modern writer on war should set himself down
+    where the greatest ancient warrior, Caesar, probably
+    stopped to quench his thirst.
+
+    "Stephen died at three in the morning, the same
+    sinister hour which carried away our friend Frederic
+    nineteen months before. At midnight, in Crane's
+    fourteenth-century house in Sussex, we two tried
+    to lure back the ghost of Frederic into that house of
+    ghosts, and to our company, thinking that if reappearing
+    were ever possible so strenuous a man as
+    Harold would somehow shoulder his way past the
+    guards, but he made no sign. I wonder if the less
+    insistent Stephen will suggest some ingenious method
+    by which the two can pass the barrier. I can imagine
+    Harold cursing on the other side, and welcoming
+    the more subtle assistance of his finely fibred
+    friend.
+
+    "I feel like the last of the Three Musketeers, the
+    other two gone down in their duel with Death. I
+    am wondering if, within the next two years, I also
+    shall get the challenge. If so, I shall go to the competing
+    ground the more cheerfully that two such
+    good fellows await the outcome on the other side.
+
+    "Ever your friend,
+
+    "ROBERT BARR."
+
+The last of the Three Musketeers is gone, now, although he outlived his
+friends by some years. Robert Barr died in 1912. Perhaps they are still
+debating a joint return.
+
+There could be, perhaps, no better close for a paper on Stephen Crane
+than the subjoined paragraph from a letter written by him to a Rochester
+editor:--
+
+    "The one thing that deeply pleases me is the
+    fact that men of sense invariably believe me to be
+    sincere. I know that my work does not amount to
+    a string of dried beans--I always calmly admit it--but
+    I also know that I do the best that is in me
+    without regard to praise or blame. When I was
+    the mark for every humorist in the country, I went
+    ahead; and now when I am the mark for only fifty
+    per cent of the humorists of the country, I go
+    ahead; for I understand that a man is born into the
+    world with his own pair of eyes, and he is not at all
+    responsible for his vision--he is merely responsible
+    for his quality of personal honesty. To keep
+    close to this personal honesty is my supreme ambition."
+
+VINCENT STARRETT.
+
+
+
+
+THE OPEN BOAT
+
+A Tale intended to be after the fact. Being the experience of four men
+from the sunk steamer "Commodore"
+
+
+I
+
+None of them knew the color of the sky. Their eyes glanced level, and
+were fastened upon the waves that swept toward them. These waves were of
+the hue of slate, save for the tops, which were of foaming white, and
+all of the men knew the colors of the sea. The horizon narrowed and
+widened, and dipped and rose, and at all times its edge was jagged with
+waves that seemed thrust up in points like rocks. Many a man ought to
+have a bath-tub larger than the boat which here rode upon the sea. These
+waves were most wrongfully and barbarously abrupt and tall, and each
+froth-top was a problem in small-boat navigation.
+
+The cook squatted in the bottom and looked with both eyes at the six
+inches of gunwale which separated him from the ocean. His sleeves were
+rolled over his fat forearms, and the two flaps of his unbuttoned vest
+dangled as he bent to bail out the boat. Often he said: "Gawd! That was
+a narrow clip." As he remarked it he invariably gazed eastward over the
+broken sea.
+
+The oiler, steering with one of the two oars in the boat, sometimes
+raised himself suddenly to keep clear of water that swirled in over the
+stern. It was a thin little oar and it seemed often ready to snap.
+
+The correspondent, pulling at the other oar, watched the waves and
+wondered why he was there.
+
+The injured captain, lying in the bow, was at this time buried in that
+profound dejection and indifference which comes, temporarily at least,
+to even the bravest and most enduring when, willy nilly, the firm fails,
+the army loses, the ship goes down. The mind of the master of a vessel
+is rooted deep in the timbers of her, though he commanded for a day or a
+decade, and this captain had on him the stern impression of a scene in
+the greys of dawn of seven turned faces, and later a stump of a top-mast
+with a white ball on it that slashed to and fro at the waves, went low
+and lower, and down. Thereafter there was something strange in his
+voice. Although steady, it was, deep with mourning, and of a quality
+beyond oration or tears.
+
+"Keep 'er a little more south, Billie," said he.
+
+"'A little more south,' sir," said the oiler in the stern.
+
+A seat in this boat was not unlike a seat upon a bucking broncho, and by
+the same token, a broncho is not much smaller. The craft pranced and
+reared, and plunged like an animal. As each wave came, and she rose for
+it, she seemed like a horse making at a fence outrageously high. The
+manner of her scramble over these walls of water is a mystic thing, and,
+moreover, at the top of them were ordinarily these problems in white
+water, the foam racing down from the summit of each wave, requiring a
+new leap, and a leap from the air. Then, after scornfully bumping a
+crest, she would slide, and race, and splash down a long incline, and
+arrive bobbing and nodding in front of the next menace.
+
+A singular disadvantage of the sea lies in the fact that after
+successfully surmounting one wave you discover that there is another
+behind it just as important and just as nervously anxious to do
+something effective in the way of swamping boats. In a ten-foot dingey
+one can get an idea of the resources of the sea in the line of waves
+that is not probable to the average experience which is never at sea in
+a dingey. As each slatey wall of water approached, it shut all else from
+the view of the men in the boat, and it was not difficult to imagine
+that this particular wave was the final outburst of the ocean, the last
+effort of the grim water. There was a terrible grace in the move of the
+waves, and they came in silence, save for the snarling of the crests.
+
+In the wan light, the faces of the men must have been grey. Their eyes
+must have glinted in strange ways as they gazed steadily astern. Viewed
+from a balcony, the whole thing would doubtless have been weirdly
+picturesque. But the men in the boat had no time to see it, and if they
+had had leisure there were other things to occupy their minds. The sun
+swung steadily up the sky, and they knew it was broad day because the
+color of the sea changed from slate to emerald-green, streaked with
+amber lights, and the foam was like tumbling snow. The process of the
+breaking day was unknown to them. They were aware only of this effect
+upon the color of the waves that rolled toward them.
+
+In disjointed sentences the cook and the correspondent argued as to the
+difference between a life-saving station and a house of refuge. The cook
+had said: "There's a house of refuge just north of the Mosquito Inlet
+Light, and as soon as they see us, they'll come off in their boat and
+pick us up."
+
+"As soon as who see us?" said the correspondent.
+
+"The crew," said the cook.
+
+"Houses of refuge don't have crews," said the correspondent. "As I
+understand them, they are only places where clothes and grub are stored
+for the benefit of shipwrecked people. They don't carry crews."
+
+"Oh, yes, they do," said the cook.
+
+"No, they don't," said the correspondent.
+
+"Well, we're not there yet, anyhow," said the oiler, in the stern.
+
+"Well," said the cook, "perhaps it's not a house of refuge that I'm
+thinking of as being near Mosquito Inlet Light. Perhaps it's a life-
+saving station."
+
+"We're not there yet," said the oiler, in the stern.
+
+
+II
+
+As the boat bounced from the top of each wave, the wind tore through the
+hair of the hatless men, and as the craft plopped her stern down again
+the spray splashed past them. The crest of each of these waves was a
+hill, from the top of which the men surveyed, for a moment, a broad
+tumultuous expanse, shining and wind-riven. It was probably splendid. It
+was probably glorious, this play of the free sea, wild with lights of
+emerald and white and amber.
+
+"Bully good thing it's an on-shore wind," said the cook; "If not, where
+would we be? Wouldn't have a show."
+
+"That's right," said the correspondent.
+
+The busy oiler nodded his assent.
+
+Then the captain, in the bow, chuckled in a way that expressed humor,
+contempt, tragedy, all in one. "Do you think We've got much of a show
+now, boys?" said he.
+
+Whereupon the three were silent, save for a trifle of hemming and
+hawing. To express any particular optimism at this time they felt to be
+childish and stupid, but they all doubtless possessed this sense of the
+situation in their mind. A young man thinks doggedly at such times. On
+the other hand, the ethics of their condition was decidedly against any
+open suggestion of hopelessness. So they were silent.
+
+"Oh, well," said the captain, soothing his children, "We'll get ashore
+all right."
+
+But there was that in his tone which made them think, so the oiler
+quoth: "Yes! If this wind holds!"
+
+The cook was bailing: "Yes! If we don't catch hell in the surf."
+
+Canton flannel gulls flew near and far. Sometimes they sat down on the
+sea, near patches of brown seaweed that rolled on the waves with a
+movement like carpets on a line in a gale. The birds sat comfortably in
+groups, and they were envied by some in the dingey, for the wrath of the
+sea was no more to them than it was to a covey of prairie chickens a
+thousand miles inland. Often they came very close and stared at the men
+with black bead-like eyes. At these times they were uncanny and sinister
+in their unblinking scrutiny, and the men hooted angrily at them,
+telling them to be gone. One came, and evidently decided to alight on
+the top of the captain's head. The bird flew parallel to the boat and
+did not circle, but made short sidelong jumps in the air in chicken-
+fashion. His black eyes were wistfully fixed upon the captain's head.
+"Ugly brute," said the oiler to the bird. "You look as if you were made
+with a jack-knife." The cook and the correspondent swore darkly at the
+creature. The captain naturally wished to knock it away with the end of
+the heavy painter; but he did not dare do it, because anything
+resembling an emphatic gesture would have capsized this freighted boat,
+and so with his open hand, the captain gently and carefully waved the
+gull away. After it had been discouraged from the pursuit the captain
+breathed easier on account of his hair, and others breathed easier
+because the bird struck their minds at this time as being somehow
+grewsome and ominous.
+
+In the meantime the oiler and the correspondent rowed And also they
+rowed.
+
+They sat together in the same seat, and each rowed an oar. Then the
+oiler took both oars; then the correspondent took both oars; then the
+oiler; then the correspondent. They rowed and they rowed. The very
+ticklish part of the business was when the time came for the reclining
+one in the stern to take his turn at the oars. By the very last star of
+truth, it is easier to steal eggs from under a hen than it was to change
+seats in the dingey. First the man in the stern slid his hand along the
+thwart and moved with care, as if he were of Sèvres. Then the man in the
+rowing seat slid his hand along the other thwart. It was all done with
+most extraordinary care. As the two sidled past each other, the whole
+party kept watchful eyes on the coming wave, and the captain cried:
+"Look out now! Steady there!"
+
+The brown mats of seaweed that appeared from time to time were like
+islands, bits of earth. They were traveling, apparently, neither one way
+nor the other. They were, to all intents, stationary. They informed the
+men in the boat that it was making progress slowly toward the land.
+
+The captain, rearing cautiously in the bow, after the dingey soared on a
+great swell, said that he had seen the light-house at Mosquito Inlet.
+Presently the cook remarked that he had seen it. The correspondent was
+at the oars then, and for some reason he too wished to look at the
+lighthouse, but his back was toward the far shore and the waves were
+important, and for some time he could not seize an opportunity to turn
+his head. But at last there came a wave more gentle than the others, and
+when at the crest of it he swiftly scoured the western horizon.
+
+"See it?" said the captain.
+
+"No," said the correspondent slowly, "I didn't see anything."
+
+"Look again," said the captain. He pointed. "It's exactly in that
+direction."
+
+At the top of another wave, the correspondent did as he was bid, and
+this time his eyes chanced on a small still thing on the edge of the
+swaying horizon. It was precisely like the point of a pin. It took an
+anxious eye to find a light house so tiny.
+
+"Think we'll make it, captain?"
+
+"If this wind holds and the boat don't swamp, we can't do much else,"
+said the captain.
+
+The little boat, lifted by each towering sea, and splashed viciously by
+the crests, made progress that in the absence of seaweed was not
+apparent to those in her. She seemed just a wee thing wallowing,
+miraculously top-up, at the mercy of five oceans. Occasionally, a great
+spread of water, like white flames, swarmed into her.
+
+"Bail her, cook," said the captain serenely.
+
+"All right, captain," said the cheerful cook.
+
+
+III
+
+It would be difficult to describe the subtle brotherhood of men that was
+here established on the seas. No one said that it was so. No one
+mentioned it. But it dwelt in the boat, and each man felt it warm him.
+They were a captain, an oiler, a cook, and a correspondent, and they
+were friends, friends in a more curiously iron-bound degree than may be
+common. The hurt captain, lying against the water-jar in the bow, spoke
+always in a low voice and calmly, but he could never command a more
+ready and swiftly obedient crew than the motley three of the dingey. It
+was more than a mere recognition of what was best for the common safety.
+There was surely in it a quality that was personal and heartfelt. And
+after this devotion to the commander of the boat there was this
+comradeship that the correspondent, for instance, who had been taught to
+be cynical of men, knew even at the time was the best experience of his
+life. But no one said that it was so. No one mentioned it.
+
+"I wish we had a sail," remarked the captain. "We might try my overcoat
+on the end of an oar and give you two boys a chance to rest." So the
+cook and the correspondent held the mast and spread wide the overcoat.
+The oiler steered, and the little boat made good way with her new rig.
+Sometimes the oiler had to scull sharply to keep a sea from breaking
+into the boat, but otherwise sailing was a success.
+
+Meanwhile the lighthouse had been growing slowly larger. It had now
+almost assumed color, and appeared like a little grey shadow on the sky.
+The man at the oars could not be prevented from turning his head rather
+often to try for a glimpse of this little grey shadow.
+
+At last, from the top of each wave the men in the tossing boat could see
+land. Even as the lighthouse was an upright shadow on the sky, this land
+seemed but a long black shadow on the sea. It certainly was thinner than
+paper. "We must be about opposite New Smyrna," said the cook, who had
+coasted this shore often in schooners. "Captain, by the way, I believe
+they abandoned that life-saving station there about a year ago."
+
+"Did they?" said the captain.
+
+The wind slowly died away. The cook and the correspondent were not now
+obliged to slave in order to hold high the oar. But the waves continued
+their old impetuous swooping at the dingey, and the little craft, no
+longer under way, struggled woundily over them. The oiler or the
+correspondent took the oars again.
+
+Shipwrecks are _à propos_ of nothing. If men could only train for
+them and have them occur when the men had reached pink condition, there
+would be less drowning at sea. Of the four in the dingey none had slept
+any time worth mentioning for two days and two nights previous to
+embarking in the dingey, and in the excitement of clambering about the
+deck of a foundering ship they had also forgotten to eat heartily.
+
+For these reasons, and for others, neither the oiler nor the
+correspondent was fond of rowing at this time. The correspondent
+wondered ingenuously how in the name of all that was sane could there be
+people who thought it amusing to row a boat. It was not an amusement; it
+was a diabolical punishment, and even a genius of mental aberrations
+could never conclude that it was anything but a horror to the muscles
+and a crime against the back. He mentioned to the boat in general how
+the amusement of rowing struck him, and the weary-faced oiler smiled in
+full sympathy. Previously to the foundering, by the way, the oiler had
+worked double-watch in the engine-room of the ship.
+
+"Take her easy, now, boys," said the captain. "Don't spend yourselves.
+If we have to run a surf you'll need all your strength, because we'll
+sure have to swim for it. Take your time."
+
+Slowly the land arose from the sea. From a black line it became a line
+of black and a line of white, trees and sand. Finally, the captain said
+that he could make out a house on the shore. "That's the house of
+refuge, sure," said the cook. "They'll see us before long, and come out
+after us."
+
+The distant lighthouse reared high. "The keeper ought to be able to make
+us out now, if he's looking through a glass," said the captain. "He'll
+notify the life-saving people."
+
+"None of those other boats could have got ashore to give word of the
+wreck," said the oiler, in a low voice. "Else the lifeboat would be out
+hunting us."
+
+Slowly and beautifully the land loomed out of the sea. The wind came
+again. It had veered from the north-east to the south-east. Finally, a
+new sound struck the ears of the men in the boat. It was the low thunder
+of the surf on the shore. "We'll never be able to make the lighthouse
+now," said the captain. "Swing her head a little more north, Billie,"
+said he.
+
+"'A little more north,' sir," said the oiler.
+
+Whereupon the little boat turned her nose once more down the wind, and
+all but the oarsman watched the shore grow. Under the influence of this
+expansion doubt and direful apprehension was leaving the minds of the
+men. The management of the boat was still most absorbing, but it could
+not prevent a quiet cheerfulness. In an hour, perhaps, they would be
+ashore.
+
+Their backbones had become thoroughly used to balancing in the boat, and
+they now rode this wild colt of a dingey like circus men. The
+correspondent thought that he had been drenched to the skin, but
+happening to feel in the top pocket of his coat, he found therein eight
+cigars. Four of them were soaked with sea-water; four were perfectly
+scathless. After a search, somebody produced three dry matches, and
+thereupon the four waifs rode impudently in their little boat, and with
+an assurance of an impending rescue shining in their eyes, puffed at the
+big cigars and judged well and ill of all men. Everybody took a drink of
+water.
+
+
+IV
+
+"Cook," remarked the captain, "there don't seem to be any signs of life
+about your house of refuge."
+
+"No," replied the cook. "Funny they don't see us!"
+
+A broad stretch of lowly coast lay before the eyes of the men. It was of
+dunes topped with dark vegetation. The roar of the surf was plain, and
+sometimes they could see the white lip of a wave as it spun up the
+beach. A tiny house was blocked out black upon the sky. Southward, the
+slim lighthouse lifted its little grey length.
+
+Tide, wind, and waves were swinging the dingey northward. "Funny they
+don't see us," said the men.
+
+The surf's roar was here dulled, but its tone was, nevertheless,
+thunderous and mighty. As the boat swam over the great rollers, the men
+sat listening to this roar. "We'll swamp sure," said everybody.
+
+It is fair to say here that there was not a life-saving station within
+twenty miles in either direction, but the men did not know this fact,
+and in consequence they made dark and opprobrious remarks concerning the
+eyesight of the nation's life-savers. Four scowling men sat in the
+dingey and surpassed records in the invention of epithets.
+
+"Funny they don't see us."
+
+The lightheartedness of a former time had completely faded. To their
+sharpened minds it was easy to conjure pictures of all kinds of
+incompetency and blindness and, indeed, cowardice. There was the shore
+of the populous land, and it was bitter and bitter to them that from it
+came no sign.
+
+"Well," said the captain, ultimately, "I suppose we'll have to make a
+try for ourselves. If we stay out here too long, we'll none of us have
+strength left to swim after the boat swamps."
+
+And so the oiler, who was at the oars, turned the boat straight for the
+shore. There was a sudden tightening of muscle. There was some thinking.
+
+"If we don't all get ashore--" said the captain. "If we don't all get
+ashore, I suppose you fellows know where to send news of my finish?"
+
+They then briefly exchanged some addresses and admonitions. As for the
+reflections of the men, there was a great deal of rage in them.
+Perchance they might be formulated thus: "If I am going to be drowned--
+if I am going to be drowned--if I am going to be drowned, why, in the
+name of the seven mad gods who rule the sea, was I allowed to come thus
+far and contemplate sand and trees? Was I brought here merely to have my
+nose dragged away as I was about to nibble the sacred cheese of life? It
+is preposterous. If this old ninny-woman, Fate, cannot do better than
+this, she should be deprived of the management of men's fortunes. She is
+an old hen who knows not her intention. If she has decided to drown me,
+why did she not do it in the beginning and save me all this trouble? The
+whole affair is absurd.... But no, she cannot mean to drown me. She dare
+not drown me. She cannot drown me. Not after all this work." Afterward
+the man might have had an impulse to shake his fist at the clouds: "Just
+you drown me, now, and then hear what I call you!"
+
+The billows that came at this time were more formidable. They seemed
+always just about to break and roll over the little boat in a turmoil of
+foam. There was a preparatory and long growl in the speech of them. No
+mind unused to the sea would have concluded that the dingey could ascend
+these sheer heights in time. The shore was still afar. The oiler was a
+wily surfman. "Boys," he said swiftly, "she won't live three minutes
+more, and we're too far out to swim. Shall I take her to sea again,
+captain?"
+
+"Yes! Go ahead!" said the captain.
+
+This oiler, by a series of quick miracles, and fast and steady
+oarsmanship, turned the boat in the middle of the surf and took her
+safely to sea again.
+
+There was a considerable silence as the boat bumped over the furrowed
+sea to deeper water. Then somebody in gloom spoke. "Well, anyhow, they
+must have seen us from the shore by now."
+
+The gulls went in slanting flight up the wind toward the grey desolate
+east. A squall, marked by dingy clouds, and clouds brick-red, like smoke
+from a burning building, appeared from the south-east.
+
+"What do you think of those life-saving people? Ain't they peaches?'
+
+"Funny they haven't seen us."
+
+"Maybe they think we're out here for sport! Maybe they think we're
+fishin'. Maybe they think we're damned fools."
+
+It was a long afternoon. A changed tide tried to force them southward,
+but the wind and wave said northward. Far ahead, where coast-line, sea,
+and sky formed their mighty angle, there were little dots which seemed
+to indicate a city on the shore.
+
+"St. Augustine?"
+
+The captain shook his head. "Too near Mosquito Inlet."
+
+And the oiler rowed, and then the correspondent rowed. Then the oiler
+rowed. It was a weary business. The human back can become the seat of
+more aches and pains than are registered in books for the composite
+anatomy of a regiment. It is a limited area, but it can become the
+theatre of innumerable muscular conflicts, tangles, wrenches, knots, and
+other comforts.
+
+"Did you ever like to row, Billie?" asked the correspondent.
+
+"No," said the oiler. "Hang it!"
+
+When one exchanged the rowing-seat for a place in the bottom of the
+boat, he suffered a bodily depression that caused him to be careless of
+everything save an obligation to wiggle one finger. There was cold sea-
+water swashing to and fro in the boat, and he lay in it. His head,
+pillowed on a thwart, was within an inch of the swirl of a wave crest,
+and sometimes a particularly obstreperous sea came in-board and drenched
+him once more. But these matters did not annoy him. It is almost certain
+that if the boat had capsized he would have tumbled comfortably out upon
+the ocean as if he felt sure that it was a great soft mattress.
+
+"Look! There's a man on the shore!"
+
+"Where?"
+
+"There! See 'im? See 'im?"
+
+"Yes, sure! He's walking along."
+
+"Now he's stopped. Look! He's facing us!"
+
+"He's waving at us!"
+
+"So he is! By thunder!"
+
+"Ah, now we're all right! Now we're all right! There'll be a boat out
+here for us in half-an-hour."
+
+"He's going on. He's running. He's going up to that house there."
+
+The remote beach seemed lower than the sea, and it required a searching
+glance to discern the little black figure. The captain saw a floating
+stick and they rowed to it. A bath-towel was by some weird chance in the
+boat, and, tying this on the stick, the captain waved it. The oarsman
+did not dare turn his head, so he was obliged to ask questions.
+
+"What's he doing now?"
+
+"He's standing still again. He's looking, I think.... There he goes
+again. Toward the house.... Now he's stopped again."
+
+"Is he waving at us?"
+
+"No, not now! he was, though."
+
+"Look! There comes another man!"
+
+"He's running."
+
+"Look at him go, would you."
+
+"Why, he's on a bicycle. Now he's met the other man. They're both waving
+at us. Look!"
+
+"There comes something up the beach."
+
+"What the devil is that thing?"
+
+"Why it looks like a boat."
+
+"Why, certainly it's a boat."
+
+"No, it's on wheels."
+
+"Yes, so it is. Well, that must be the life-boat. They drag them along
+shore on a wagon."
+
+"That's the life-boat, sure."
+
+"No, by ----, it's--it's an omnibus."
+
+"I tell you it's a life-boat."
+
+"It is not! It's an omnibus. I can see it plain. See? One of these big
+hotel omnibuses."
+
+"By thunder, you're right. It's an omnibus, sure as fate. What do you
+suppose they are doing with an omnibus? Maybe they are going around
+collecting the life-crew, hey?"
+
+"That's it, likely. Look! There's a fellow waving a little black flag.
+He's standing on the steps of the omnibus. There come those other two
+fellows. Now they're all talking together. Look at the fellow with the
+flag. Maybe he ain't waving it."
+
+"That ain't a flag, is it? That's his coat. Why, certainly, that's his
+coat."
+
+"So it is. It's his coat. He's taken it off and is waving it around his
+head. But would you look at him swing it."
+
+"Oh, say, there isn't any life-saving station there. That's just a
+winter resort hotel omnibus that has brought over some of the boarders
+to see us drown."
+
+"What's that idiot with the coat mean? What's he signaling, anyhow?"
+
+"It looks as if he were trying to tell us to go north. There must be a
+life-saving station up there."
+
+"No! He thinks we're fishing. Just giving us a merry hand. See? Ah,
+there, Willie!"
+
+"Well, I wish I could make something out of those signals. What do you
+suppose he means?"
+
+"He don't mean anything. He's just playing."
+
+"Well, if he'd just signal us to try the surf again, or to go to sea and
+wait, or go north, or go south, or go to hell--there would be some
+reason in it. But look at him. He just stands there and keeps his coat
+revolving like a wheel. The ass!"
+
+"There come more people."
+
+"Now there's quite a mob. Look! Isn't that a boat?"
+
+"Where? Oh, I see where you mean. No, that's no boat."
+
+"That fellow is still waving his coat."
+
+"He must think we like to see him do that. Why don't he quit it? It
+don't mean anything."
+
+"I don't know. I think he is trying to make us go north. It must be that
+there's a life-saving station there somewhere."
+
+"Say, he ain't tired yet. Look at 'im wave."
+
+"Wonder how long he can keep that up. He's been revolving his coat ever
+since he caught sight of us. He's an idiot. Why aren't they getting men
+to bring a boat out? A fishing boat--one of those big yawls--could come
+out here all right. Why don't he do something?"
+
+"Oh, it's all right, now."
+
+"They'll have a boat out here for us in less than no time, now that
+they've seen us."
+
+A faint yellow tone came into the sky over the low land. The shadows on
+the sea slowly deepened. The wind bore coldness with it, and the men
+began to shiver.
+
+"Holy smoke!" said one, allowing his voice to express his impious mood,
+"if we keep on monkeying out here! If we've got to flounder out here all
+night!"
+
+"Oh, we'll never have to stay here all night! Don't you worry. They've
+seen us now, and it won't be long before they'll come chasing out after
+us."
+
+The shore grew dusky. The man waving a coat blended gradually into this
+gloom, and it swallowed in the same manner the omnibus and the group of
+people. The spray, when it dashed uproariously over the side, made the
+voyagers shrink and swear like men who were being branded.
+
+"I'd like to catch the chump who waved the coat. I feel like soaking him
+one, just for luck."
+
+"Why? What did he do?"
+
+"Oh, nothing, but then he seemed so damned cheerful."
+
+In the meantime the oiler rowed, and then the correspondent rowed, and
+then the oiler rowed. Grey-faced and bowed forward, they mechanically,
+turn by turn, plied the leaden oars. The form of the lighthouse had
+vanished from the southern horizon, but finally a pale star appeared,
+just lifting from the sea. The streaked saffron in the west passed
+before the all-merging darkness, and the sea to the east was black. The
+land had vanished, and was expressed only by the low and drear thunder
+of the surf.
+
+"If I am going to be drowned--if I am going to be drowned--if I am going
+to be drowned, why, in the name of the seven mad gods who rule the sea,
+was I allowed to come thus far and contemplate sand and trees? Was I
+brought here merely to have my nose dragged away as I was about to
+nibble the sacred cheese of life?"
+
+The patient captain, drooped over the water-jar, was sometimes obliged
+to speak to the oarsman.
+
+"Keep her head up! Keep her head up!"
+
+"'Keep her head up,' sir." The voices were weary and low.
+
+This was surely a quiet evening. All save the oarsman lay heavily and
+listlessly in the boat's bottom. As for him, his eyes were just capable
+of noting the tall black waves that swept forward in a most sinister
+silence, save for an occasional subdued growl of a crest.
+
+The cook's head was on a thwart, and he looked without interest at the
+water under his nose. He was deep in other scenes. Finally he spoke.
+"Billie," he murmured, dreamfully, "what kind of pie do you like best?"
+
+
+V
+
+"Pie," said the oiler and the correspondent, agitatedly. "Don't talk
+about those things, blast you!"
+
+"Well," said the cook, "I was just thinking about ham sandwiches, and--"
+
+A night on the sea in an open boat is a long night. As darkness settled
+finally, the shine of the light, lifting from the sea in the south,
+changed to full gold. On the northern horizon a new light appeared, a
+small bluish gleam on the edge of the waters. These two lights were the
+furniture of the world. Otherwise there was nothing but waves.
+
+Two men huddled in the stern, and distances were so magnificent in the
+dingey that the rower was enabled to keep his feet partly warmed by
+thrusting them under his companions. Their legs indeed extended far
+under the rowing-seat until they touched the feet of the captain
+forward. Sometimes, despite the efforts of the tired oarsman, a wave
+came piling into the boat, an icy wave of the night, and the chilling
+water soaked them anew. They would twist their bodies for a moment and
+groan, and sleep the dead sleep once more, while the water in the boat
+gurgled about them as the craft rocked.
+
+The plan of the oiler and the correspondent was for one to row until he
+lost the ability, and then arouse the other from his sea-water couch in
+the bottom of the boat.
+
+The oiler plied the oars until his head drooped forward, and the
+overpowering sleep blinded him. And he rowed yet afterward. Then he
+touched a man in the bottom of the boat, and called his name. "Will you
+spell me for a little while?" he said, meekly.
+
+"Sure, Billie," said the correspondent, awakening and dragging himself
+to a sitting position. They exchanged places carefully, and the oiler,
+cuddling down in the sea-water at the cook's side, seemed to go to sleep
+instantly.
+
+The particular violence of the sea had ceased. The waves came without
+snarling. The obligation of the man at the oars was to keep the boat
+headed so that the tilt of the rollers would not capsize her, and to
+preserve her from filling when the crests rushed past. The black waves
+were silent and hard to be seen in the darkness. Often one was almost
+upon the boat before the oarsman was aware.
+
+In a low voice the correspondent addressed the captain. He was not sure
+that the captain was awake, although this iron man seemed to be always
+awake. "Captain, shall I keep her making for that light north, sir?"
+
+The same steady voice answered him. "Yes. Keep it about two points off
+the port bow."
+
+The cook had tied a life-belt around himself in order to get even the
+warmth which this clumsy cork contrivance could donate, and he seemed
+almost stove-like when a rower, whose teeth invariably chattered wildly
+as soon as he ceased his labor, dropped down to sleep.
+
+The correspondent, as he rowed, looked down at the two men sleeping
+under-foot. The cook's arm was around the oiler's shoulders, and, with
+their fragmentary clothing and haggard faces, they were the babes of the
+sea, a grotesque rendering of the old babes in the wood.
+
+Later he must have grown stupid at his work, for suddenly there was a
+growling of water, and a crest came with a roar and a swash into the
+boat, and it was a wonder that it did not set the cook afloat in his
+life-belt. The cook continued to sleep, but the oiler sat up, blinking
+his eyes and shaking with the new cold.
+
+"Oh, I'm awful sorry, Billie," said the correspondent contritely.
+
+"That's all right, old boy," said the oiler, and lay down again and was
+asleep.
+
+Presently it seemed that even the captain dozed, and the correspondent
+thought that he was the one man afloat on all the oceans. The wind had a
+voice as it came over the waves, and it was sadder than the end.
+
+There was a long, loud swishing astern of the boat, and a gleaming trail
+of phosphorescence, like blue flame, was furrowed on the black waters.
+It might have been made by a monstrous knife.
+
+Then there came a stillness, while the correspondent breathed with the
+open mouth and looked at the sea.
+
+Suddenly there was another swish and another long flash of bluish light,
+and this time it was alongside the boat, and might almost have been
+reached with an oar. The correspondent saw an enormous fin speed like a
+shadow through the water, hurling the crystalline spray and leaving the
+long glowing trail.
+
+The correspondent looked over his shoulder at the captain. His face was
+hidden, and he seemed to be asleep. He looked at the babes of the sea.
+They certainly were asleep. So, being bereft of sympathy, he leaned a
+little way to one side and swore softly into the sea.
+
+But the thing did not then leave the vicinity of the boat. Ahead or
+astern, on one side or the other, at intervals long or short, fled the
+long sparkling streak, and there was to be heard the whirroo of the dark
+fin. The speed and power of the thing was greatly to be admired. It cut
+the water like a gigantic and keen projectile.
+
+The presence of this biding thing did not affect the man with the same
+horror that it would if he had been a picnicker. He simply looked at the
+sea dully and swore in an undertone.
+
+Nevertheless, it is true that he did not wish to be alone. He wished one
+of his companions to awaken by chance and keep him company with it. But
+the captain hung motionless over the water-jar, and the oiler and the
+cook in the bottom of the boat were plunged in slumber.
+
+
+VI
+
+"If I am going to be drowned--if I am going to be drowned--if I am going
+to be drowned, why, in the name of the seven mad gods who rule the sea,
+was I allowed to come thus far and contemplate sand and trees?"
+
+During this dismal night, it may be remarked that a man would conclude
+that it was really the intention of the seven mad gods to drown him,
+despite the abominable injustice of it. For it was certainly an
+abominable injustice to drown a man who had worked so hard, so hard. The
+man felt it would be a crime most unnatural. Other people had drowned at
+sea since galleys swarmed with painted sails, but still--
+
+When it occurs to a man that nature does not regard him as important,
+and that she feels she would not maim the universe by disposing of him,
+he at first wishes to throw bricks at the temple, and he hates deeply
+the fact that there are no brick and no temples. Any visible expression
+of nature would surely be pelleted with his jeers.
+
+Then, if there be no tangible thing to hoot he feels, perhaps, the
+desire to confront a personification and indulge in pleas, bowed to one
+knee, and with hands supplicant, saying: "Yes, but I love myself."
+
+A high cold star on a winter's night is the word he feels that she says
+to him. Thereafter he knows the pathos of his situation.
+
+The men in the dingey had not discussed these matters, but each had, no
+doubt, reflected upon them in silence and according to his mind. There
+was seldom any expression upon their faces save the general one of
+complete weariness. Speech was devoted to the business of the boat.
+
+To chime the notes of his emotion, a verse mysteriously entered the
+correspondent's head. He had even forgotten that he had forgotten this
+verse, but it suddenly was in his mind.
+
+  "A soldier of the Legion lay dying in Algiers,
+   There was a lack of woman's nursing, there was dearth of
+     woman's tears;
+   But a comrade stood beside him, and he took that comrade's hand,
+   And he said: 'I shall never see my own, my native land.'"
+
+In his childhood, the correspondent had been made acquainted with the
+fact that a soldier of the Legion lay dying in Algiers, but he had never
+regarded the fact as important. Myriads of his school-fellows had
+informed him of the soldier's plight, but the dinning had naturally
+ended by making him perfectly indifferent. He had never considered it
+his affair that a soldier of the Legion lay dying in Algiers, nor had it
+appeared to him as a matter for sorrow. It was less to him than the
+breaking of a pencil's point.
+
+Now, however, it quaintly came to him as a human, living thing. It was
+no longer merely a picture of a few throes in the breast of a poet,
+meanwhile drinking tea and warming his feet at the grate; it was an
+actuality--stern, mournful, and fine.
+
+The correspondent plainly saw the soldier. He lay on the sand with his
+feet out straight and still. While his pale left hand was upon his chest
+in an attempt to thwart the going of his life, the blood came between
+his fingers. In the far Algerian distance, a city of low square forms
+was set against a sky that was faint with the last sunset hues. The
+correspondent, plying the oars and dreaming of the slow and slower
+movements of the lips of the soldier, was moved by a profound and
+perfectly impersonal comprehension. He was sorry for the soldier of the
+Legion who lay dying in Algiers.
+
+The thing which had followed the boat and waited, had evidently grown
+bored at the delay. There was no longer to be heard the slash of the
+cut-water, and there was no longer the flame of the long trail. The
+light in the north still glimmered, but it was apparently no nearer to
+the boat. Sometimes the boom of the surf rang in the correspondent's
+ears, and he turned the craft seaward then and rowed harder. Southward,
+some one had evidently built a watch-fire on the beach. It was too low
+and too far to be seen, but it made a shimmering, roseate reflection
+upon the bluff back of it, and this could be discerned from the boat.
+The wind came stronger, and sometimes a wave suddenly raged out like a
+mountain-cat, and there was to be seen the sheen and sparkle of a broken
+crest.
+
+The captain, in the bow, moved on his water-jar and sat erect. "Pretty
+long night," he observed to the correspondent. He looked at the shore.
+"Those life-saving people take their time."
+
+"Did you see that shark playing around?"
+
+"Yes, I saw him. He was a big fellow, all right."
+
+"Wish I had known you were awake."
+
+Later the correspondent spoke into the bottom of the boat.
+
+"Billie!" There was a slow and gradual disentanglement. "Billie, will
+you spell me?"
+
+"Sure," said the oiler.
+
+As soon as the correspondent touched the cold comfortable sea-water in
+the bottom of the boat, and had huddled close to the cook's life-belt he
+was deep in sleep, despite the fact that his teeth played all the
+popular airs. This sleep was so good to him that it was but a moment
+before he heard a voice call his name in a tone that demonstrated the
+last stages of exhaustion. "Will you spell me?"
+
+"Sure, Billie."
+
+The light in the north had mysteriously vanished, but the correspondent
+took his course from the wide-awake captain.
+
+Later in the night they took the boat farther out to sea, and the
+captain directed the cook to take one oar at the stern and keep the boat
+facing the seas. He was to call out if he should hear the thunder of the
+surf. This plan enabled the oiler and the correspondent to get respite
+together. "We'll give those boys a chance to get into shape again," said
+the captain. They curled down and, after a few preliminary chatterings
+and trembles, slept once more the dead sleep. Neither knew they had
+bequeathed to the cook the company of another shark, or perhaps the same
+shark.
+
+As the boat caroused on the waves, spray occasionally bumped over the
+side and gave them a fresh soaking, but this had no power to break their
+repose. The ominous slash of the wind and the water affected them as it
+would have affected mummies.
+
+"Boys," said the cook, with the notes of every reluctance in his voice,
+"she's drifted in pretty close. I guess one of you had better take her
+to sea again." The correspondent, aroused, heard the crash of the
+toppled crests.
+
+As he was rowing, the captain gave him some whisky-and-water, and this
+steadied the chills out of him. "If I ever get ashore and anybody shows
+me even a photograph of an oar--"
+
+At last there was a short conversation.
+
+"Billie.... Billie, will you spell me?"
+
+"Sure," said the oiler.
+
+
+VII
+
+When the correspondent again opened his eyes, the sea and the sky were
+each of the grey hue of the dawning. Later, carmine and gold was painted
+upon the waters. The morning appeared finally, in its splendor, with a
+sky of pure blue, and the sunlight flamed on the tips of the waves.
+
+On the distant dunes were set many little black cottages, and a tall
+white windmill reared above them. No man, nor dog, nor bicycle appeared
+on the beach. The cottages might have formed a deserted village.
+
+The voyagers scanned the shore. A conference was held in the boat.
+"Well," said the captain, "if no help is coming we might better try a
+run through the surf right away. If we stay out here much longer we will
+be too weak to do anything for ourselves at all." The others silently
+acquiesced in this reasoning. The boat was headed for the beach. The
+correspondent wondered if none ever ascended the tall wind-tower, and if
+then they never looked seaward. This tower was a giant, standing with
+its back to the plight of the ants. It represented in a degree, to the
+correspondent, the serenity of nature amid the struggles of the
+individual--nature in the wind, and nature in the vision of men. She did
+not seem cruel to him then, nor beneficent, nor treacherous, nor wise.
+But she was indifferent, flatly indifferent. It is, perhaps, plausible
+that a man in this situation, impressed with the unconcern of the
+universe, should see the innumerable flaws of his life, and have them
+taste wickedly in his mind and wish for another chance. A distinction
+between right and wrong seems absurdly clear to him, then, in this new
+ignorance of the grave-edge, and he understands that if he were given
+another opportunity he would mend his conduct and his words, and be
+better and brighter during an introduction or at a tea.
+
+"Now, boys," said the captain, "she is going to swamp, sure. All we can
+do is to work her in as far as possible, and then when she swamps, pile
+out and scramble for the beach. Keep cool now, and don't jump until she
+swamps sure."
+
+The oiler took the oars. Over his shoulders he scanned the surf.
+"Captain," he said, "I think I'd better bring her about, and keep her
+head-on to the seas and back her in."
+
+"All right, Billie," said the captain. "Back her in." The oiler swung
+the boat then and, seated in the stern, the cook and the correspondent
+were obliged to look over their shoulders to contemplate the lonely and
+indifferent shore.
+
+The monstrous in-shore rollers heaved the boat high until the men were
+again enabled to see the white sheets of water scudding up the slanted
+beach. "We won't get in very close," said the captain. Each time a man
+could wrest his attention from the rollers, he turned his glance toward
+the shore, and in the expression of the eyes during this contemplation
+there was a singular quality. The correspondent, observing the others,
+knew that they were not afraid, but the full meaning of their glances
+was shrouded.
+
+As for himself, he was too tired to grapple fundamentally with the fact.
+He tried to coerce his mind into thinking of it, but the mind was
+dominated at this time by the muscles, and the muscles said they did not
+care. It merely occurred to him that if he should drown it would be a
+shame.
+
+There were no hurried words, no pallor, no plain agitation. The men
+simply looked at the shore. "Now, remember to get well clear of the boat
+when you jump," said the captain.
+
+Seaward the crest of a roller suddenly fell with a thunderous crash, and
+the long white comber came roaring down upon the boat.
+
+"Steady now," said the captain. The men were silent. They turned their
+eyes from the shore to the comber and waited. The boat slid up the
+incline, leaped at the furious top, bounced over it, and swung down the
+long back of the wave. Some water had been shipped and the cook bailed
+it out.
+
+But the next crest crashed also. The tumbling, boiling flood of white
+water caught the boat and whirled it almost perpendicular. Water swarmed
+in from all sides. The correspondent had his hands on the gunwale at
+this time, and when the water entered at that place he swiftly withdrew
+his fingers, as if he objected to wetting them.
+
+The little boat, drunken with this weight of water, reeled and snuggled
+deeper into the sea.
+
+"Bail her out, cook! Bail her out," said the captain.
+
+"All right, captain," said the cook.
+
+"Now, boys, the next one will do for us, sure," said the oiler. "Mind to
+jump clear of the boat."
+
+The third wave moved forward, huge, furious, implacable. It fairly
+swallowed the dingey, and almost simultaneously the men tumbled into the
+sea. A piece of lifebelt had lain in the bottom of the boat, and as the
+correspondent went overboard he held this to his chest with his left
+hand.
+
+The January water was icy, and he reflected immediately that it was
+colder than he had expected to find it on the coast of Florida. This
+appeared to his dazed mind as a fact important enough to be noted at the
+time. The coldness of the water was sad; it was tragic. This fact was
+somehow so mixed and confused with his opinion of his own situation that
+it seemed almost a proper reason for tears. The water was cold.
+
+When he came to the surface he was conscious of little but the noisy
+water. Afterward he saw his companions in the sea. The oiler was ahead
+in the race. He was swimming strongly and rapidly. Off to the
+correspondent's left, the cook's great white and corked back bulged out
+of the water, and in the rear the captain was hanging with his one good
+hand to the keel of the overturned dingey.
+
+There is a certain immovable quality to a shore, and the correspondent
+wondered at it amid the confusion of the sea.
+
+It seemed also very attractive, but the correspondent knew that it was a
+long journey, and he paddled leisurely. The piece of life-preserver lay
+under him, and sometimes he whirled down the incline of a wave as if he
+were on a handsled.
+
+But finally he arrived at a place in the sea where travel was beset
+with difficulty. He did not pause swimming to inquire what manner of
+current had caught him, but there his progress ceased. The shore was set
+before him like a bit of scenery on a stage, and he looked at it and
+understood with his eyes each detail of it.
+
+As the cook passed, much farther to the left, the captain was calling to
+him, "Turn over on your back, cook! Turn over on your back and use the
+oar."
+
+"All right, sir." The cook turned on his back, and, paddling with an
+oar, went ahead as if he were a canoe.
+
+Presently the boat also passed to the left of the correspondent with the
+captain clinging with one hand to the keel. He would have appeared like
+a man raising himself to look over a board fence, if it were not for the
+extraordinary gymnastics of the boat. The correspondent marvelled that
+the captain could still hold to it.
+
+They passed on, nearer to shore--the oiler, the cook, the captain--and
+following them went the water-jar, bouncing gaily over the seas.
+
+The correspondent remained in the grip of this strange new enemy--a
+current. The shore, with its white slope of sand and its green bluff,
+topped with little silent cottages, was spread like a picture before
+him. It was very near to him then, but he was impressed as one who in a
+gallery looks at a scene from Brittany or Holland.
+
+He thought: "I am going to drown? Can it be possible Can it be possible?
+Can it be possible?" Perhaps an individual must consider his own death
+to be the final phenomenon of nature.
+
+But later a wave perhaps whirled him out of this small, deadly current,
+for he found suddenly that he could again make progress toward the
+shore. Later still, he was aware that the captain, clinging with one
+hand to the keel of the dingey, had his face turned away from the shore
+and toward him, and was calling his name. "Come to the boat! Come to the
+boat!"
+
+In his struggle to reach the captain and the boat, he reflected that
+when one gets properly wearied, drowning must really be a comfortable
+arrangement, a cessation of hostilities accompanied by a large degree of
+relief, and he was glad of it, for the main thing in his mind for some
+months had been horror of the temporary agony. He did not wish to be
+hurt.
+
+Presently he saw a man running along the shore. He was undressing with
+most remarkable speed. Coat, trousers, shirt, everything flew magically
+off him.
+
+"Come to the boat," called the captain.
+
+"All right, captain." As the correspondent paddled, he saw the captain
+let himself down to bottom and leave the boat. Then the correspondent
+performed his one little marvel of the voyage. A large wave caught him
+and flung him with ease and supreme speed completely over the boat and
+far beyond it. It struck him even then as an event in gymnastics, and a
+true miracle of the sea. An over-turned boat in the surf is not a
+plaything to a swimming man.
+
+The correspondent arrived in water that reached only to his waist, but
+his condition did not enable him to stand for more than a moment. Each
+wave knocked him into a heap, and the under-tow pulled at him.
+
+Then he saw the man who had been running and undressing, and undressing
+and running, come bounding into the water. He dragged ashore the cook,
+and then waded towards the captain, but the captain waved him away, and
+sent him to the correspondent. He was naked, naked as a tree in winter,
+but a halo was about his head, and he shone like a saint. He gave a
+strong pull, and a long drag, and a bully heave at the correspondent's
+hand. The correspondent, schooled in the minor formulae, said: "Thanks,
+old man." But suddenly the man cried: "What's that?" He pointed a swift
+finger. The correspondent said: "Go."
+
+In the shallows, face downward, lay the oiler. His forehead touched sand
+that was periodically, between each wave, clear of the sea.
+
+The correspondent did not know all that transpired afterward. When he
+achieved safe ground he fell, striking the sand with each particular
+part of his body. It was as if he had dropped from a roof, but the thud
+was grateful to him.
+
+It seems that instantly the beach was populated with men with blankets,
+clothes, and flasks, and women with coffeepots and all the remedies
+sacred to their minds. The welcome of the land to the men from the sea
+was warm and generous, but a still and dripping shape was carried slowly
+up the beach, and the land's welcome for it could only be the different
+and sinister hospitality of the grave.
+
+When it came night, the white waves paced to and fro in the moonlight,
+and the wind brought the sound of the great sea's voice to the men on
+shore, and they felt that they could then be interpreters.
+
+
+
+
+THE RELUCTANT VOYAGERS
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+Two men sat by the sea waves.
+
+"Well, I know I'm not handsome," said one gloomily. He was poking holes
+in the sand with a discontented cane.
+
+The companion was watching the waves play. He seemed overcome with
+perspiring discomfort as a man who is resolved to set another man right.
+
+Suddenly his mouth turned into a straight line.
+
+"To be sure you are not," he cried vehemently.
+
+"You look like thunder. I do not desire to be unpleasant, but I must
+assure you that your freckled skin continually reminds spectators of
+white wall paper with gilt roses on it. The top of your head looks like
+a little wooden plate. And your figure--heavens!"
+
+For a time they were silent. They stared at the waves that purred near
+their feet like sleepy sea-kittens.
+
+Finally the first man spoke.
+
+"Well," said he, defiantly, "what of it?"
+
+"What of it?" exploded the other. "Why, it means that you'd look like
+blazes in a bathing-suit."
+
+They were again silent. The freckled man seemed ashamed. His tall
+companion glowered at the scenery.
+
+"I am decided," said the freckled man suddenly. He got boldly up from the
+sand and strode away. The tall man followed, walking sarcastically and
+glaring down at the round, resolute figure before him.
+
+A bath-clerk was looking at the world with superior eyes through a hole
+in a board. To him the freckled man made application, waving his hands
+over his person in illustration of a snug fit. The bath-clerk thought
+profoundly. Eventually, he handed out a blue bundle with an air of
+having phenomenally solved the freckled man's dimensions.
+
+The latter resumed his resolute stride.
+
+"See here," said the tall man, following him, "I bet you've got a
+regular toga, you know. That fellow couldn't tell--"
+
+"Yes, he could," interrupted the freckled man, "I saw correct
+mathematics in his eyes."
+
+"Well, supposin' he has missed your size. Supposin'--"
+
+"Tom," again interrupted the other, "produce your proud clothes and
+we'll go in."
+
+The tall man swore bitterly. He went to one of a row of little wooden
+boxes and shut himself in it. His companion repaired to a similar box.
+
+At first he felt like an opulent monk in a too-small cell, and he turned
+round two or three times to see if he could. He arrived finally into his
+bathing-dress. Immediately he dropped gasping upon a three-cornered
+bench. The suit fell in folds about his reclining form. There was
+silence, save for the caressing calls of the waves without.
+
+Then he heard two shoes drop on the floor in one of the little coops. He
+began to clamor at the boards like a penitent at an unforgiving door.
+
+"Tom," called he, "Tom--"
+
+A voice of wrath, muffled by cloth, came through the walls. "You go t'
+blazes!"
+
+The freckled man began to groan, taking the occupants of the entire row
+of coops into his confidence.
+
+"Stop your noise," angrily cried the tall man from his hidden den. "You
+rented the bathing-suit, didn't you? Then--"
+
+"It ain't a bathing-suit," shouted the freckled man at the boards. "It's
+an auditorium, a ballroom, or something. It isn't a bathing-suit."
+
+The tall man came out of his box. His suit looked like blue skin. He
+walked with grandeur down the alley between the rows of coops. Stopping
+in front of his friend's door, he rapped on it with passionate knuckles.
+
+"Come out of there, y' ol' fool," said he, in an enraged whisper. "It's
+only your accursed vanity. Wear it anyhow. What difference does it make?
+I never saw such a vain ol' idiot!"
+
+As he was storming the door opened, and his friend confronted him. The
+tall man's legs gave way, and he fell against the opposite door.
+
+The freckled man regarded him sternly.
+
+"You're an ass," he said.
+
+His back curved in scorn. He walked majestically down the alley. There
+was pride in the way his chubby feet patted the boards. The tall man
+followed, weakly, his eyes riveted upon the figure ahead.
+
+As a disguise the freckled man had adopted the stomach of importance. He
+moved with an air of some sort of procession, across a board walk, down
+some steps, and out upon the sand.
+
+There was a pug dog and three old women on a bench, a man and a maid
+with a book and a parasol, a seagull drifting high in the wind, and a
+distant, tremendous meeting of sea and sky. Down on the wet sand stood a
+girl being wooed by the breakers.
+
+The freckled man moved with stately tread along the beach. The tall man,
+numb with amazement, came in the rear. They neared the girl.
+
+Suddenly the tall man was seized with convulsions. He laughed, and the
+girl turned her head.
+
+She perceived the freckled man in the bathing-suit. An expression of
+wonderment overspread her charming face. It changed in a moment to a
+pearly smile.
+
+This smile seemed to smite the freckled man. He obviously tried to swell
+and fit his suit. Then he turned a shrivelling glance upon his
+companion, and fled up the beach. The tall man ran after him, pursuing
+with mocking cries that tingled his flesh like stings of insects. He
+seemed to be trying to lead the way out of the world. But at last he
+stopped and faced about.
+
+"Tom Sharp," said he, between his clenched teeth, "you are an
+unutterable wretch! I could grind your bones under my heel."
+
+The tall man was in a trance, with glazed eyes fixed on the bathing-
+dress. He seemed to be murmuring: "Oh, good Lord! Oh, good Lord! I never
+saw such a suit!"
+
+The freckled man made the gesture of an assassin.
+
+"Tom Sharp, you--"
+
+The other was still murmuring: "Oh, good Lord! I never saw such a suit!
+I never--"
+
+The freckled man ran down into the sea.
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+The cool, swirling waters took his temper from him, and it became a
+thing that is lost in the ocean. The tall man floundered in, and the two
+forgot and rollicked in the waves.
+
+The freckled man, in endeavoring to escape from mankind, had left all
+save a solitary fisherman under a large hat, and three boys in bathing-
+dress, laughing and splashing upon a raft made of old spars.
+
+The two men swam softly over the ground swells.
+
+The three boys dived from their raft, and turned their jolly faces
+shorewards. It twisted slowly around and around, and began to move
+seaward on some unknown voyage. The freckled man laid his face to the
+water and swam toward the raft with a practised stroke. The tall man
+followed, his bended arm appearing and disappearing with the precision
+of machinery.
+
+The craft crept away, slowly and wearily, as if luring. The little
+wooden plate on the freckled man's head looked at the shore like a
+round, brown eye, but his gaze was fixed on the raft that slyly appeared
+to be waiting. The tall man used the little wooden plate as a beacon.
+
+At length the freckled man reached the raft and climbed aboard. He lay
+down on his back and puffed. His bathing-dress spread about him like a
+dead balloon. The tall man came, snorted, shook his tangled locks and
+lay down by the side of his companion.
+
+They were overcome with a delicious drowsiness. The planks of the raft
+seemed to fit their tired limbs. They gazed dreamily up into the vast
+sky of summer.
+
+"This is great," said the tall man. His companion grunted blissfully.
+
+Gentle hands from the sea rocked their craft and lulled them to peace.
+Lapping waves sang little rippling sea-songs about them. The two men
+issued contented groans.
+
+"Tom," said the freckled man.
+
+"What?" said the other.
+
+"This is great."
+
+They lay and thought.
+
+A fish-hawk, soaring, suddenly, turned and darted at the waves. The tall
+man indolently twisted his head and watched the bird plunge its claws
+into the water. It heavily arose with a silver gleaming fish.
+
+"That bird has got his feet wet again. It's a shame," murmured the tall
+man sleepily. "He must suffer from an endless cold in the head. He
+should wear rubber boots. They'd look great, too. If I was him, I'd--
+Great Scott!"
+
+He had partly arisen, and was looking at the shore.
+
+He began to scream. "Ted! Ted! Ted! Look!"
+
+"What's matter?" dreamily spoke the freckled man. "You remind me of when
+I put the bird-shot in your leg." He giggled softly.
+
+The agitated tall man made a gesture of supreme eloquence. His companion
+up-reared and turned a startled gaze shoreward.
+
+"Lord!" he roared, as if stabbed.
+
+The land was a long, brown streak with a rim of green, in which sparkled
+the tin roofs of huge hotels. The hands from the sea had pushed them
+away. The two men sprang erect, and did a little dance of perturbation.
+
+"What shall we do? What shall we do?" moaned the freckled man, wriggling
+fantastically in his dead balloon.
+
+The changing shore seemed to fascinate the tall man, and for a time he
+did not speak.
+
+Suddenly he concluded his minuet of horror. He wheeled about and faced
+the freckled man. He elaborately folded his arms.
+
+"So," he said, in slow, formidable tones. "So! This all comes from your
+accursed vanity, your bathing-suit, your idiocy; you have murdered your
+best friend."
+
+He turned away. His companion reeled as if stricken by an unexpected
+arm.
+
+He stretched out his hands. "Tom, Tom," wailed he, beseechingly, "don't
+be such a fool."
+
+The broad back of his friend was occupied by a contemptuous sneer.
+
+Three ships fell off the horizon. Landward, the hues were blending. The
+whistle of a locomotive sounded from an infinite distance as if tooting
+in heaven.
+
+"Tom! Tom! My dear boy," quavered the freckled man, "don't speak that
+way to me."
+
+"Oh, no, of course not," said the other, still facing away and throwing
+the words over his shoulder. "You suppose I am going to accept all this
+calmly, don't you? Not make the slightest objection? Make no protest at
+all, hey?"
+
+"Well, I--I----" began the freckled man.
+
+The tall man's wrath suddenly exploded. "You've abducted me! That's the
+whole amount of it! You've abducted me!"
+
+"I ain't," protested the freckled man. "You must think I'm a fool."
+
+The tall man swore, and sitting down, dangled his legs angrily in the
+water. Natural law compelled his companion to occupy the other end of
+the raft.
+
+Over the waters little shoals of fish spluttered, raising tiny tempests.
+Languid jelly-fish floated near, tremulously waving a thousand legs. A
+row of porpoises trundled along like a procession of cog-wheels. The sky
+became greyed save where over the land sunset colors were assembling.
+
+The two voyagers, back to back and at either end of the raft, quarrelled
+at length.
+
+"What did you want to follow me for?" demanded the freckled man in a
+voice of indignation.
+
+"If your figure hadn't been so like a bottle, we wouldn't be here,"
+replied the tall man.
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+The fires in the west blazed away, and solemnity spread over the sea.
+Electric lights began to blink like eyes. Night menaced the voyagers
+with a dangerous darkness, and fear came to bind their souls together.
+They huddled fraternally in the middle of the raft.
+
+"I feel like a molecule," said the freckled man in subdued tones.
+
+"I'd give two dollars for a cigar," muttered the tall man.
+
+A V-shaped flock of ducks flew towards Barnegat, between the voyagers
+and a remnant of yellow sky. Shadows and winds came from the vanished
+eastern horizon.
+
+"I think I hear voices," said the freckled man.
+
+"That Dollie Ramsdell was an awfully nice girl," said the tall man.
+
+When the coldness of the sea night came to them, the freckled man found
+he could by a peculiar movement of his legs and arms encase himself in
+his bathing-dress. The tall man was compelled to whistle and shiver. As
+night settled finally over the sea, red and green lights began to dot
+the blackness. There were mysterious shadows between the waves.
+
+"I see things comin'," murmured the freckled man.
+
+"I wish I hadn't ordered that new dress-suit for the hop to-morrow
+night," said the tall man reflectively.
+
+The sea became uneasy and heaved painfully, like a lost bosom, when
+little forgotten heart-bells try to chime with a pure sound. The
+voyagers cringed at magnified foam on distant wave crests. A moon came
+and looked at them.
+
+"Somebody's here," whispered the freckled man.
+
+"I wish I had an almanac," remarked the tall man, regarding the moon.
+
+Presently they fell to staring at the red and green lights that twinkled
+about them.
+
+"Providence will not leave us," asserted the freckled man.
+
+"Oh, we'll be picked up shortly. I owe money," said the tall man.
+
+He began to thrum on an imaginary banjo.
+
+"I have heard," said he, suddenly, "that captains with healthy ships
+beneath their feet will never turn back after having once started on a
+voyage. In that case we will be rescued by some ship bound for the
+golden seas of the south. Then, you'll be up to some of your confounded
+devilment and we'll get put off. They'll maroon us! That's what they'll
+do! They'll maroon us! On an island with palm trees and sun-kissed
+maidens and all that. Sun-kissed maidens, eh? Great! They'd--"
+
+He suddenly ceased and turned to stone. At a distance a great, green eye
+was contemplating the sea wanderers.
+
+They stood up and did another dance. As they watched the eye grew
+larger.
+
+Directly the form of a phantom-like ship came into view. About the
+great, green eye there bobbed small yellow dots. The wanderers could
+hear a far-away creaking of unseen tackle and flapping of shadowy sails.
+There came the melody of the waters as the ship's prow thrust its way.
+
+The tall man delivered an oration.
+
+"Ha!" he exclaimed, "here come our rescuers. The brave fellows! How I
+long to take the manly captain by the hand! You will soon see a white
+boat with a star on its bow drop from the side of yon ship. Kind sailors
+in blue and white will help us into the boat and conduct our wasted
+frames to the quarter-deck, where the handsome, bearded captain, with
+gold bands all around, will welcome us. Then in the hard-oak cabin,
+while the wine gurgles and the Havanas glow, we'll tell our tale of
+peril and privation."
+
+The ship came on like a black hurrying animal with froth-filled maw. The
+two wanderers stood up and clasped hands. Then they howled out a wild
+duet that rang over the wastes of sea.
+
+The cries seemed to strike the ship.
+
+Men with boots on yelled and ran about the deck. They picked up heavy
+articles and threw them down. They yelled more. After hideous creakings
+and flappings, the vessel stood still.
+
+In the meantime the wanderers had been chanting their song for help. Out
+in the blackness they beckoned to the ship and coaxed.
+
+A voice came to them.
+
+"Hello," it said.
+
+They puffed out their cheeks and began to shout. "Hello! Hello! Hello!"
+
+"Wot do yeh want?" said the voice.
+
+The two wanderers gazed at each other, and sat suddenly down on the
+raft. Some pall came sweeping over the sky and quenched their stars.
+
+But almost the tall man got up and brawled miscellaneous information. He
+stamped his foot, and frowning into the night, swore threateningly.
+
+The vessel seemed fearful of these moaning voices that called from a
+hidden cavern of the water. And now one voice was filled with a menace.
+A number of men with enormous limbs that threw vast shadows over the sea
+as the lanterns flickered, held a debate and made gestures.
+
+Off in the darkness, the tall man began to clamor like a mob. The
+freckled man sat in astounded silence, with his legs weak.
+
+After a time one of the men of enormous limbs seized a rope that was
+tugging at the stem and drew a small boat from the shadows. Three giants
+clambered in and rowed cautiously toward the raft. Silver water flashed
+in the gloom as the oars dipped.
+
+About fifty feet from the raft the boat stopped. "Who er you?" asked a
+voice.
+
+The tall man braced himself and explained. He drew vivid pictures, his
+twirling fingers illustrating like live brushes.
+
+"Oh," said the three giants.
+
+The voyagers deserted the raft. They looked back, feeling in their
+hearts a mite of tenderness for the wet planks. Later, they wriggled up
+the side of the vessel and climbed over the railing.
+
+On deck they met a man.
+
+He held a lantern to their faces. "Got any chewin' tewbacca?" he
+inquired.
+
+"No," said the tall man, "we ain't."
+
+The man had a bronze face and solitary whiskers. Peculiar lines about
+his mouth were shaped into an eternal smile of derision. His feet were
+bare, and clung handily to crevices.
+
+Fearful trousers were supported by a piece of suspender that went up the
+wrong side of his chest and came down the right side of his back,
+dividing him into triangles.
+
+"Ezekiel P. Sanford, capt'in, schooner 'Mary Jones,' of N'yack, N. Y.,
+genelmen," he said.
+
+"Ah!" said the tall man, "delighted, I'm sure."
+
+There were a few moments of silence. The giants were hovering in the
+gloom and staring.
+
+Suddenly astonishment exploded the captain.
+
+"Wot th' devil----" he shouted. "Wot th' devil yeh got on?"
+
+"Bathing-suits," said the tall man.
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+The schooner went on. The two voyagers sat down and watched. After a
+time they began to shiver. The soft blackness of the summer night passed
+away, and grey mists writhed over the sea. Soon lights of early dawn
+went changing across the sky, and the twin beacons on the highlands grew
+dim and sparkling faintly, as if a monster were dying. The dawn
+penetrated the marrow of the two men in bathing-dress.
+
+The captain used to pause opposite them, hitch one hand in his
+suspender, and laugh.
+
+"Well, I be dog-hanged," he frequently said.
+
+The tall man grew furious. He snarled in a mad undertone to his
+companion. "This rescue ain't right. If I had known--"
+
+He suddenly paused, transfixed by the captain's suspender. "It's goin'
+to break," cried he, in an ecstatic whisper. His eyes grew large with
+excitement as he watched the captain laugh. "It'll break in a minute,
+sure."
+
+But the commander of the schooner recovered, and invited them to drink
+and eat. They followed him along the deck, and fell down a square black
+hole into the cabin.
+
+It was a little den, with walls of a vanished whiteness. A lamp shed an
+orange light. In a sort of recess two little beds were hiding. A wooden
+table, immovable, as if the craft had been builded around it, sat in the
+middle of the floor. Overhead the square hole was studded with a dozen
+stars. A foot-worn ladder led to the heavens.
+
+The captain produced ponderous crackers and some cold broiled ham. Then
+he vanished in the firmament like a fantastic comet.
+
+The freckled man sat quite contentedly like a stout squaw in a blanket.
+The tall man walked about the cabin and sniffed. He was angered at the
+crudeness of the rescue, and his shrinking clothes made him feel too
+large. He contemplated his unhappy state.
+
+Suddenly, he broke out. "I won't stand this, I tell you! Heavens and
+earth, look at the--say, what in the blazes did you want to get me in
+this thing for, anyhow? You're a fine old duffer, you are! Look at that
+ham!"
+
+The freckled man grunted. He seemed somewhat blissful. He was seated
+upon a bench, comfortably enwrapped in his bathing-dress.
+
+The tall man stormed about the cabin.
+
+"This is an outrage! I'll see the captain! I'll tell him what I think
+of--"
+
+He was interrupted by a pair of legs that appeared among the stars. The
+captain came down the ladder. He brought a coffee pot from the sky.
+
+The tall man bristled forward. He was going to denounce everything.
+
+The captain was intent upon the coffee pot, balancing it carefully, and
+leaving his unguided feet to find the steps of the ladder.
+
+But the wrath of the tall man faded. He twirled his fingers in
+excitement, and renewed his ecstatic whisperings to the freckled man.
+
+"It's going to break! Look, quick, look! It'll break in a minute!"
+
+He was transfixed with interest, forgetting his wrongs in staring at the
+perilous passage.
+
+But the captain arrived on the floor with triumphant suspenders.
+
+"Well," said he, "after yeh have eat, maybe ye'd like t'sleep some! If
+so, yeh can sleep on them beds."
+
+The tall man made no reply, save in a strained undertone. "It'll break
+in about a minute! Look, Ted, look quick!"
+
+The freckled man glanced in a little bed on which were heaped boots and
+oilskins. He made a courteous gesture.
+
+"My dear sir, we could not think of depriving you of your beds. No,
+indeed. Just a couple of blankets if you have them, and we'll sleep very
+comfortable on these benches."
+
+The captain protested, politely twisting his back and bobbing his head.
+The suspenders tugged and creaked. The tall man partially suppressed a
+cry, and took a step forward.
+
+The freckled man was sleepily insistent, and shortly the captain gave
+over his deprecatory contortions. He fetched a pink quilt with yellow
+dots on it to the freckled man, and a black one with red roses on it to
+the tall man.
+
+Again he vanished in the firmament. The tall man gazed until the last
+remnant of trousers disappeared from the sky. Then he wrapped himself up
+in his quilt and lay down. The freckled man was puffing contentedly,
+swathed like an infant. The yellow polka-dots rose and fell on the vast
+pink of his chest.
+
+The wanderers slept. In the quiet could be heard the groanings of
+timbers as the sea seemed to crunch them together. The lapping of water
+along the vessel's side sounded like gaspings. A hundred spirits of the
+wind had got their wings entangled in the rigging, and, in soft voices,
+were pleading to be loosened.
+
+The freckled man was awakened by a foreign noise. He opened his eyes and
+saw his companion standing by his couch.
+
+His comrade's face was wan with suffering. His eyes glowed in the
+darkness. He raised his arms, spreading them out like a clergyman at a
+grave. He groaned deep in his chest.
+
+"Good Lord!" yelled the freckled man, starting up. "Tom, Tom, what's th'
+matter?"
+
+The tall man spoke in a fearful voice. "To New York," he said, "to New
+York in our bathing-suits."
+
+The freckled man sank back. The shadows of the cabin threw mysteries
+about the figure of the tall man, arrayed like some ancient and potent
+astrologer in the black quilt with the red roses on it.
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+Directly the tall man went and lay down and began to groan.
+
+The freckled man felt the miseries of the world upon him. He grew angry
+at the tall man awakening him. They quarrelled.
+
+"Well," said the tall man, finally, "we're in a fix."
+
+"I know that," said the other, sharply.
+
+They regarded the ceiling in silence.
+
+"What in the thunder are we going to do?" demanded the tall man, after a
+time. His companion was still silent. "Say," repeated he, angrily, "what
+in the thunder are we going to do?"
+
+"I'm sure I don't know," said the freckled man in a dismal voice.
+
+"Well, think of something," roared the other. "Think of something, you
+old fool. You don't want to make any more idiots of yourself, do you?"
+
+"I ain't made an idiot of myself."
+
+"Well, think. Know anybody in the city?"
+
+"I know a fellow up in Harlem," said the freckled man.
+
+"You know a fellow up in Harlem," howled the tall man. "Up in Harlem!
+How the dickens are we to--say, you're crazy!"
+
+"We can take a cab," cried the other, waxing indignant.
+
+The tall man grew suddenly calm. "Do you know any one else?" he asked,
+measuredly.
+
+"I know another fellow somewhere on Park Place."
+
+"Somewhere on Park Place," repeated the tall man in an unnatural manner.
+"Somewhere on Park Place." With an air of sublime resignation he turned
+his face to the wall.
+
+The freckled man sat erect and frowned in the direction of his
+companion. "Well, now, I suppose you are going to sulk. You make me ill!
+It's the best we can do, ain't it? Hire a cab and go look that fellow up
+on Park--What's that? You can't afford it? What nonsense! You are
+getting--Oh! Well, maybe we can beg some clothes of the captain. Eh?
+Did I see 'im? Certainly, I saw 'im. Yes, it is improbable that a man
+who wears trousers like that can have clothes to lend. No, I won't wear
+oilskins and a sou'-wester. To Athens? Of course not! I don't know where
+it is. Do you? I thought not. With all your grumbling about other
+people, you never know anything important yourself. What? Broadway? I'll
+be hanged first. We can get off at Harlem, man alive. There are no cabs
+in Harlem. I don't think we can bribe a sailor to take us ashore and
+bring a cab to the dock, for the very simple reason that we have nothing
+to bribe him with. What? No, of course not. See here, Tom Sharp, don't
+you swear at me like that. I won't have it. What's that? I ain't,
+either. I ain't. What? I am not. It's no such thing. I ain't. I've got
+more than you have, anyway. Well, you ain't doing anything so very
+brilliant yourself--just lying there and cussin'." At length the tall
+man feigned prodigiously to snore. The freckled man thought with such
+vigor that he fell asleep.
+
+After a time he dreamed that he was in a forest where bass drums grew on
+trees. There came a strong wind that banged the fruit about like empty
+pods. A frightful din was in his ears.
+
+He awoke to find the captain of the schooner standing over him.
+
+"We're at New York now," said the captain, raising his voice above the
+thumping and banging that was being done on deck, "an' I s'pose you
+fellers wanta go ashore." He chuckled in an exasperating manner. "Jes'
+sing out when yeh wanta go," he added, leering at the freckled man.
+
+The tall man awoke, came over and grasped the captain by the throat.
+
+"If you laugh again I'll kill you," he said.
+
+The captain gurgled and waved his legs and arms.
+
+"In the first place," the tall man continued, "you rescued us in a
+deucedly shabby manner. It makes me ill to think of it. I've a mind to
+mop you 'round just for that. In the second place, your vessel is bound
+for Athens, N. Y., and there's no sense in it. Now, will you or will you
+not turn this ship about and take us back where our clothes are, or to
+Philadelphia, where we belong?"
+
+He furiously shook the captain. Then he eased his grip and awaited a
+reply.
+
+"I can't," yelled the captain, "I can't. This vessel don't belong to me.
+I've got to--"
+
+"Well, then," interrupted the tall man, "can you lend us some clothes?"
+
+"Hain't got none," replied the captain, promptly. His face was red, and
+his eyes were glaring.
+
+"Well, then," said the tall man, "can you lend us some money?"
+
+"Hain't got none," replied the captain, promptly. Something overcame him
+and he laughed.
+
+"Thunderation," roared the tall man. He seized the captain, who began to
+have wriggling contortions. The tall man kneaded him as if he were
+biscuits. "You infernal scoundrel," he bellowed, "this whole affair is
+some wretched plot, and you are in it. I am about to kill you."
+
+The solitary whisker of the captain did acrobatic feats like a strange
+demon upon his chin. His eyes stood perilously from his head. The
+suspender wheezed and tugged like the tackle of a sail.
+
+Suddenly the tall man released his hold. Great expectancy sat upon his
+features. "It's going to break!" he cried, rubbing his hands.
+
+But the captain howled and vanished in the sky.
+
+The freckled man then came forward. He appeared filled with sarcasm.
+
+"So!" said he. "So, you've settled the matter. The captain is the only
+man in the world who can help us, and I daresay he'll do anything he can
+now."
+
+"That's all right," said the tall man. "If you don't like the way I run
+things you shouldn't have come on this trip at all."
+
+They had another quarrel.
+
+At the end of it they went on deck. The captain stood at the stern
+addressing the bow with opprobrious language. When he perceived the
+voyagers he began to fling his fists about in the air.
+
+"I'm goin' to put yeh off!" he yelled. The wanderers stared at each
+other.
+
+"Hum," said the tall man.
+
+The freckled man looked at his companion. "He's going to put us off, you
+see," he said, complacently.
+
+The tall man began to walk about and move his shoulders. "I'd like to
+see you do it," he said, defiantly.
+
+The captain tugged at a rope. A boat came at his bidding.
+
+"I'd like to see you do it," the tall man repeated, continually. An
+imperturbable man in rubber boots climbed down in the boat and seized
+the oars. The captain motioned downward. His whisker had a triumphant
+appearance.
+
+The two wanderers looked at the boat. "I guess we'll have to get in,"
+murmured the freckled man.
+
+The tall man was standing like a granite column. "I won't," said he. "I
+won't! I don't care what you do, but I won't!"
+
+"Well, but--" expostulated the other. They held a furious debate.
+
+In the meantime the captain was darting about making sinister gestures,
+but the back of the tall man held him at bay. The crew, much depleted by
+the departure of the imperturbable man into the boat, looked on from the
+bow.
+
+"You're a fool," the freckled man concluded his argument.
+
+"So?" inquired the tall man, highly exasperated.
+
+"So! Well, if you think you're so bright, we'll go in the boat, and then
+you'll see."
+
+He climbed down into the craft and seated himself in an ominous manner
+at the stern.
+
+"You'll see," he said to his companion, as the latter floundered heavily
+down. "You'll see!"
+
+The man in rubber boots calmly rowed the boat toward the shore. As they
+went, the captain leaned over the railing and laughed. The freckled man
+was seated very victoriously.
+
+"Well, wasn't this the right thing after all?" he inquired in a pleasant
+voice. The tall man made no reply.
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+As they neared the dock something seemed suddenly to occur to the
+freckled man.
+
+"Great heavens!" he murmured. He stared at the approaching shore.
+
+"My, what a plight, Tommy!" he quavered.
+
+"Do you think so?" spoke up the tall man. "Why, I really thought you
+liked it." He laughed in a hard voice. "Lord, what a figure you'll cut."
+
+This laugh jarred the freckled man's soul. He became mad.
+
+"Thunderation, turn the boat around!" he roared. "Turn 'er round, quick!
+Man alive, we can't--turn 'er round, d'ye hear!"
+
+The tall man in the stern gazed at his companion with glowing eyes.
+
+"Certainly not," he said. "We're going on. You insisted Upon it." He
+began to prod his companion with words.
+
+The freckled man stood up and waved his arms.
+
+"Sit down," said the tall man. "You'll tip the boat over."
+
+The other man began to shout.
+
+"Sit down!" said the tall man again.
+
+Words bubbled from the freckled man's mouth. There was a little torrent
+of sentences that almost choked him. And he protested passionately with
+his hands.
+
+But the boat went on to the shadow of the docks. The tall man was intent
+upon balancing it as it rocked dangerously during his comrade's oration.
+
+"Sit down," he continually repeated.
+
+"I won't," raged the freckled man. "I won't do anything." The boat
+wobbled with these words.
+
+"Say," he continued, addressing the oarsman, "just turn this boat round,
+will you? Where in the thunder are you taking us to, anyhow?"
+
+The oarsman looked at the sky and thought. Finally he spoke. "I'm doin'
+what the cap'n sed."
+
+"Well, what in th' blazes do I care what the cap'n sed?" demanded the
+freckled man. He took a violent step. "You just turn this round or--"
+
+The small craft reeled. Over one side water came flashing in. The
+freckled man cried out in fear, and gave a jump to the other side. The
+tall man roared orders, and the oarsman made efforts. The boat acted for
+a moment like an animal on a slackened wire. Then it upset.
+
+"Sit down!" said the tall man, in a final roar as he was plunged into
+the water. The oarsman dropped his oars to grapple with the gunwale. He
+went down saying unknown words. The freckled man's explanation or
+apology was strangled by the water.
+
+Two or three tugs let off whistles of astonishment, and continued on
+their paths. A man dozing on a dock aroused and began to caper.
+
+The passengers on a ferry-boat all ran to the near railing. A miraculous
+person in a small boat was bobbing on the waves near the piers. He
+sculled hastily toward the scene. It was a swirl of waters in the midst
+of which the dark bottom of the boat appeared, whale-like.
+
+Two heads suddenly came up.
+
+"839," said the freckled man, chokingly. "That's it! 839!"
+
+"What is?" said the tall man.
+
+"That's the number of that feller on Park Place. I just remembered."
+
+"You're the bloomingest--" the tall man said.
+
+"It wasn't my fault," interrupted his companion. "If you hadn't--" He
+tried to gesticulate, but one hand held to the keel of the boat, and the
+other was supporting the form of the oarsman. The latter had fought a
+battle with his immense rubber boots and had been conquered.
+
+The rescuer in the other small boat came fiercely. As his craft glided
+up, he reached out and grasped the tall man by the collar and dragged
+him into the boat, interrupting what was, under the circumstances, a
+very brilliant flow of rhetoric directed at the freckled man. The
+oarsman of the wrecked craft was taken tenderly over the gunwale and
+laid in the bottom of the boat. Puffing and blowing, the freckled man
+climbed in.
+
+"You'll upset this one before we can get ashore," the other voyager
+remarked.
+
+As they turned toward the land they saw that the nearest dock was lined
+with people. The freckled man gave a little moan.
+
+But the staring eyes of the crowd were fixed on the limp form of the man
+in rubber boots. A hundred hands reached down to help lift the body up.
+On the dock some men grabbed it and began to beat it and roll it. A
+policeman tossed the spectators about. Each individual in the heaving
+crowd sought to fasten his eyes on the blue-tinted face of the man in
+the rubber boots. They surged to and fro, while the policeman beat them
+indiscriminately.
+
+The wanderers came modestly up the dock and gazed shrinkingly at the
+throng. They stood for a moment, holding their breath to see the first
+finger of amazement levelled at them.
+
+But the crowd bended and surged in absorbing anxiety to view the man in
+rubber boots, whose face fascinated them. The sea-wanderers were as
+though they were not there.
+
+They stood without the jam and whispered hurriedly.
+
+"839," said the freckled man.
+
+"All right," said the tall man.
+
+Under the pommeling hands the oarsman showed signs of life. The voyagers
+watched him make a protesting kick at the leg of the crowd, the while
+uttering angry groans.
+
+"He's better," said the tall man, softly; "let's make off."
+
+Together they stole noiselessly up the dock. Directly in front of it
+they found a row of six cabs.
+
+The drivers on top were filled with a mighty curiosity. They had driven
+hurriedly from the adjacent ferry-house when they had seen the first
+running sign of an accident. They were straining on their toes and
+gazing at the tossing backs of the men in the crowd.
+
+The wanderers made a little detour, and then went rapidly towards a cab.
+They stopped in front of it and looked up.
+
+"Driver," called the tall man, softly.
+
+The man was intent.
+
+"Driver," breathed the freckled man. They stood for a moment and gazed
+imploringly.
+
+The cabman suddenly moved his feet. "By Jimmy, I bet he's a gonner," he
+said, in an ecstacy, and he again relapsed into a statue.
+
+The freckled man groaned and wrung his hands. The tall man climbed into
+the cab.
+
+"Come in here," he said to his companion. The freckled man climbed in,
+and the tall man reached over and pulled the door shut. Then he put his
+head out the window.
+
+"Driver," he roared, sternly, "839 Park Place--and quick."
+
+The driver looked down and met the eye of the tall man. "Eh?--Oh--839?
+Park Place? Yessir." He reluctantly gave his horse a clump on the back.
+As the conveyance rattled off the wanderers huddled back among the
+dingy cushions and heaved great breaths of relief.
+
+"Well, it's all over," said the freckled man, finally. "We're about out
+of it. And quicker than I expected. Much quicker. It looked to me
+sometimes that we were doomed. I am thankful to find it not so. I am
+rejoiced. And I hope and trust that you--well, I don't wish to--perhaps
+it is not the proper time to--that is, I don't wish to intrude a moral
+at an inopportune moment, but, my dear, dear fellow, I think the time is
+ripe to point out to you that your obstinacy, your selfishness, your
+villainous temper, and your various other faults can make it just as
+unpleasant for your ownself, my dear boy, as they frequently do for
+other people. You can see what you brought us to, and I most sincerely
+hope, my dear, dear fellow, that I shall soon see those signs in you
+which shall lead me to believe that you have become a wiser man."
+
+
+
+
+THE END OF THE BATTLE
+
+
+A sergeant, a corporal, and fourteen men of the Twelfth Regiment of the
+Line had been sent out to occupy a house on the main highway. They would
+be at least a half of a mile in advance of any other picket of their own
+people. Sergeant Morton was deeply angry at being sent on this duty. He
+said that he was over-worked. There were at least two sergeants, he
+claimed furiously, whose turn it should have been to go on this arduous
+mission. He was treated unfairly; he was abused by his superiors; why
+did any damned fool ever join the army? As for him he would get out of
+it as soon as possible; he was sick of it; the life of a dog. All this
+he said to the corporal, who listened attentively, giving grunts of
+respectful assent. On the way to this post two privates took occasion to
+drop to the rear and pilfer in the orchard of a deserted plantation.
+When the sergeant discovered this absence, he grew black with a rage
+which was an accumulation of all his irritations. "Run, you!" he howled.
+"Bring them here! I'll show them--" A private ran swiftly to the rear.
+The remainder of the squad began to shout nervously at the two
+delinquents, whose figures they could see in the deep shade of the
+orchard, hurriedly picking fruit from the ground and cramming it within
+their shirts, next to their skins. The beseeching cries of their
+comrades stirred the criminals more than did the barking of the
+sergeant. They ran to rejoin the squad, while holding their loaded
+bosoms and with their mouths open with aggrieved explanations.
+
+Jones faced the sergeant with a horrible cancer marked in bumps on his
+left side. The disease of Patterson showed quite around the front of his
+waist in many protuberances. "A nice pair!" said the sergeant, with
+sudden frigidity. "You're the kind of soldiers a man wants to choose for
+a dangerous outpost duty, ain't you?"
+
+The two privates stood at attention, still looking much aggrieved. "We
+only--" began Jones huskily.
+
+"Oh, you 'only!'" cried the sergeant. "Yes, you 'only.' I know all about
+that. But if you think you are going to trifle with me--"
+
+A moment later the squad moved on towards its station. Behind the
+sergeant's back Jones and Patterson were slyly passing apples and pears
+to their friends while the sergeant expounded eloquently to the
+corporal. "You see what kind of men are in the army now. Why, when I
+joined the regiment it was a very different thing, I can tell you. Then
+a sergeant had some authority, and if a man disobeyed orders, he had a
+very small chance of escaping something extremely serious. But now! Good
+God! If I report these men, the captain will look over a lot of beastly
+orderly sheets and say--'Haw, eh, well, Sergeant Morton, these men seem
+to have very good records; very good records, indeed. I can't be too
+hard on them; no, not too hard.'" Continued the sergeant: "I tell you,
+Flagler, the army is no place for a decent man."
+
+Flagler, the corporal, answered with a sincerity of appreciation which
+with him had become a science. "I think you are right, sergeant," he
+answered.
+
+Behind them the privates mumbled discreetly. "Damn this sergeant of
+ours. He thinks we are made of wood. I don't see any reason for all this
+strictness when we are on active service. It isn't like being at home in
+barracks! There is no great harm in a couple of men dropping out to raid
+an orchard of the enemy when all the world knows that we haven't had a
+decent meal in twenty days."
+
+The reddened face of Sergeant Morton suddenly showed to the rear. "A
+little more marching and less talking," he said.
+
+When he came to the house he had been ordered to occupy the sergeant
+sniffed with disdain. "These people must have lived like cattle," he
+said angrily. To be sure, the place was not alluring. The ground floor
+had been used for the housing of cattle, and it was dark and terrible. A
+flight of steps led to the lofty first floor, which was denuded but
+respectable. The sergeant's visage lightened when he saw the strong
+walls of stone and cement. "Unless they turn guns on us, they will never
+get us out of here," he said cheerfully to the squad. The men, anxious
+to keep him in an amiable mood, all hurriedly grinned and seemed very
+appreciative and pleased. "I'll make this into a fortress," he
+announced. He sent Jones and Patterson, the two orchard thieves, out on
+sentry-duty. He worked the others, then, until he could think of no more
+things to tell them to do. Afterwards he went forth, with a major-
+general's serious scowl, and examined the ground in front of his
+position. In returning he came upon a sentry, Jones, munching an apple.
+He sternly commanded him to throw it away.
+
+The men spread their blankets on the floors of the bare rooms, and
+putting their packs under their heads and lighting their pipes, they
+lived an easy peace. Bees hummed in the garden, and a scent of flowers
+came through the open window. A great fan-shaped bit of sunshine smote
+the face of one man, and he indolently cursed as he moved his primitive
+bed to a shadier place.
+
+Another private explained to a comrade: "This is all nonsense anyhow. No
+sense in occupying this post. They--"
+
+"But, of course," said the corporal, "when she told me herself that she
+cared more for me than she did for him, I wasn't going to stand any of
+his talk--" The corporal's listener was so sleepy that he could only
+grunt his sympathy.
+
+There was a sudden little spatter of shooting. A cry from Jones rang
+out. With no intermediate scrambling, the sergeant leaped straight to
+his feet. "Now," he cried, "let us see what you are made of! If," he
+added bitterly, "you are made of anything!"
+
+A man yelled: "Good God, can't you see you're all tangled up in my
+cartridge belt?"
+
+Another man yelled: "Keep off my legs! Can't you walk on the floor?"
+
+To the windows there was a blind rush of slumberous men, who brushed
+hair from their eyes even as they made ready their rifles. Jones and
+Patterson came stumbling up the steps, crying dreadful information.
+Already the enemy's bullets were spitting and singing over the house.
+
+The sergeant suddenly was stiff and cold with a sense of the importance
+of the thing. "Wait until you see one," he drawled loudly and calmly,
+"then shoot."
+
+For some moments the enemy's bullets swung swifter than lightning over
+the house without anybody being able to discover a target. In this
+interval a man was shot in the throat. He gurgled, and then lay down on
+the floor. The blood slowly waved down the brown skin of his neck while
+he looked meekly at his comrades.
+
+There was a howl. "There they are! There they come!" The rifles
+crackled. A light smoke drifted idly through the rooms. There was a
+strong odor as if from burnt paper and the powder of firecrackers. The
+men were silent. Through the windows and about the house the bullets of
+an entirely invisible enemy moaned, hummed, spat, burst, and sang.
+
+The men began to curse. "Why can't we see them?" they muttered through
+their teeth. The sergeant was still frigid. He answered soothingly as if
+he were directly reprehensible for this behavior of the enemy. "Wait a
+moment. You will soon be able to see them. There! Give it to them!" A
+little skirt of black figures had appeared in a field. It was really
+like shooting at an upright needle from the full length of a ballroom.
+But the men's spirits improved as soon as the enemy--this mysterious
+enemy--became a tangible thing, and far off. They had believed the foe
+to be shooting at them from the adjacent garden.
+
+"Now," said the sergeant ambitiously, "we can beat them off easily if
+you men are good enough."
+
+A man called out in a tone of quick, great interest. "See that fellow on
+horseback, Bill? Isn't he on horseback? I thought he was on horseback."
+
+There was a fusilade against another side of the house. The sergeant
+dashed into the room which commanded the situation. He found a dead
+soldier on the floor. He rushed out howling: "When was Knowles killed?
+When was Knowles killed? When was Knowles killed? Damn it, when was
+Knowles killed?" It was absolutely essential to find out the exact
+moment this man died. A blackened private turned upon his sergeant and
+demanded: "How in hell do I know?" Sergeant Morton had a sense of anger
+so brief that in the next second he cried: "Patterson!" He had even
+forgotten his vital interest in the time of Knowles' death.
+
+"Yes?" said Patterson, his face set with some deep-rooted quality of
+determination. Still, he was a mere farm boy.
+
+"Go in to Knowles' window and shoot at those people," said the sergeant
+hoarsely. Afterwards he coughed. Some of the fumes of the fight had made
+way to his lungs.
+
+Patterson looked at the door into this other room. He looked at it as if
+he suspected it was to be his death-chamber. Then he entered and stood
+across the body of Knowles and fired vigorously into a group of plum
+trees.
+
+"They can't take this house," declared the sergeant in a contemptuous
+and argumentative tone. He was apparently replying to somebody. The man
+who had been shot in the throat looked up at him. Eight men were firing
+from the windows. The sergeant detected in a corner three wounded men
+talking together feebly. "Don't you think there is anything to do?" he
+bawled. "Go and get Knowles' cartridges and give them to somebody who
+can use them! Take Simpson's too." The man who had been shot in the
+throat looked at him. Of the three wounded men who had been talking, one
+said: "My leg is all doubled up under me, sergeant." He spoke
+apologetically.
+
+Meantime the sergeant was re-loading his rifle. His foot slipped in the
+blood of the man who had been shot in the throat, and the military boot
+made a greasy red streak on the floor.
+
+"Why, we can hold this place!" shouted the sergeant jubilantly. "Who
+says we can't?"
+
+Corporal Flagler suddenly spun away from his window and fell in a heap.
+
+"Sergeant," murmured a man as he dropped to a seat on the floor out of
+danger, "I can't stand this. I swear I can't. I think we should run
+away."
+
+Morton, with the kindly eyes of a good shepherd, looked at the man. "You
+are afraid, Johnston, you are afraid," he said softly. The man struggled
+to his feet, cast upon the sergeant a gaze full of admiration, reproach,
+and despair, and returned to his post. A moment later he pitched
+forward, and thereafter his body hung out of the window, his arms
+straight and the fists clenched. Incidentally this corpse was pierced
+afterwards by chance three times by bullets of the enemy.
+
+The sergeant laid his rifle against the stonework of the window-frame
+and shot with care until his magazine was empty. Behind him a man,
+simply grazed on the elbow, was wildly sobbing like a girl. "Damn it,
+shut up!" said Morton, without turning his head. Before him was a vista
+of a garden, fields, clumps of trees, woods, populated at the time with
+little fleeting figures.
+
+He grew furious. "Why didn't he send me orders?" he cried aloud. The
+emphasis on the word "he" was impressive. A mile back on the road a
+galloper of the Hussars lay dead beside his dead horse.
+
+The man who had been grazed on the elbow still set up his bleat.
+Morton's fury veered to this soldier. "Can't you shut up? Can't you shut
+up? Can't you shut up? Fight! That's the thing to do. Fight!"
+
+A bullet struck Morton, and he fell upon the man who had been shot in
+the throat. There was a sickening moment. Then the sergeant rolled off
+to a position upon the bloody floor. He turned himself with a last
+effort until he could look at the wounded who were able to look at him.
+
+"Kim up, the Kickers," he said thickly. His arms weakened and he dropped
+on his face.
+
+After an interval a young subaltern of the enemy's infantry, followed by
+his eager men, burst into this reeking interior. But just over the
+threshold he halted before the scene of blood and death. He turned with
+a shrug to his sergeant. "God, I should have estimated them at least one
+hundred strong."
+
+
+
+
+UPTURNED FACE
+
+
+"What will we do now?" said the adjutant, troubled and excited.
+
+"Bury him," said Timothy Lean.
+
+The two officers looked down close to their toes where lay the body of
+their comrade. The face was chalk-blue; gleaming eyes stared at the sky.
+Over the two upright figures was a windy sound of bullets, and on the
+top of the hill Lean's prostrate company of Spitzbergen infantry was
+firing measured volleys.
+
+"Don't you think it would be better--" began the adjutant. "We might
+leave him until tomorrow."
+
+"No," said Lean. "I can't hold that post an hour longer. I've got to
+fall back, and we've got to bury old Bill."
+
+"Of course," said the adjutant, at once. "Your men got intrenching
+tools?"
+
+Lean shouted back to his little line, and two men came slowly, one with
+a pick, one with a shovel. They started in the direction of the Rostina
+sharp-shooters. Bullets cracked near their ears. "Dig here," said Lean
+gruffly. The men, thus caused to lower their glances to the turf, became
+hurried and frightened merely because they could not look to see whence
+the bullets came. The dull beat of the pick striking the earth sounded
+amid the swift snap of close bullets. Presently the other private began
+to shovel.
+
+"I suppose," said the adjutant, slowly, "we'd better search his clothes
+for--things."
+
+Lean nodded. Together in curious abstraction they looked at the body.
+Then Lean stirred his shoulders suddenly, arousing himself.
+
+"Yes," he said, "we'd better see what he's got." He dropped to his
+knees, and his hands approached the body of the dead officer. But his
+hands wavered over the buttons of the tunic. The first button was brick-
+red with drying blood, and he did not seem to dare touch it.
+
+"Go on," said the adjutant, hoarsely.
+
+Lean stretched his wooden hand, and his fingers fumbled the blood-
+stained buttons. At last he rose with ghastly face. He had gathered a
+watch, a whistle, a pipe, a tobacco pouch, a handkerchief, a little case
+of cards and papers. He looked at the adjutant. There was a silence. The
+adjutant was feeling that he had been a coward to make Lean do all the
+grisly business.
+
+"Well," said Lean, "that's all, I think. You have his sword and
+revolver?"
+
+"Yes," said the adjutant, his face working, and then he burst out in a
+sudden strange fury at the two privates. "Why don't you hurry up with
+that grave? What are you doing, anyhow? Hurry, do you hear? I never saw
+such stupid--"
+
+Even as he cried out in his passion the two men were laboring for their
+lives. Ever overhead the bullets were spitting.
+
+The grave was finished, It was not a masterpiece--a poor little shallow
+thing. Lean and the adjutant again looked at each other in a curious
+silent communication.
+
+Suddenly the adjutant croaked out a weird laugh. It was a terrible
+laugh, which had its origin in that part of the mind which is first
+moved by the singing of the nerves. "Well," he said, humorously to Lean,
+"I suppose we had best tumble him in."
+
+"Yes," said Lean. The two privates stood waiting, bent over their
+implements. "I suppose," said Lean, "it would be better if we laid him
+in ourselves."
+
+"Yes," said the adjutant. Then apparently remembering that he had made
+Lean search the body, he stooped with great fortitude and took hold of
+the dead officer's clothing. Lean joined him. Both were particular that
+their fingers should not feel the corpse. They tugged away; the corpse
+lifted, heaved, toppled, flopped into the grave, and the two officers,
+straightening, looked again at each other--they were always looking at
+each other. They sighed with relief.
+
+The adjutant said, "I suppose we should--we should say something. Do you
+know the service, Tim?"
+
+"They don't read the service until the grave is filled in," said Lean,
+pressing his lips to an academic expression.
+
+"Don't they?" said the adjutant, shocked that he had made the mistake.
+
+"Oh, well," he cried, suddenly, "let us--let us say something--while he
+can hear us."
+
+"All right," said Lean. "Do you know the service?"
+
+"I can't remember a line of it," said the adjutant.
+
+Lean was extremely dubious. "I can repeat two lines, but--"
+
+"Well, do it," said the adjutant. "Go as far as you can. That's better
+than nothing. And the beasts have got our range exactly."
+
+Lean looked at his two men. "Attention," he barked. The privates came to
+attention with a click, looking much aggrieved. The adjutant lowered his
+helmet to his knee. Lean, bareheaded, he stood over the grave. The
+Rostina sharpshooters fired briskly.
+
+"Oh, Father, our friend has sunk in the deep waters of death, but his
+spirit has leaped toward Thee as the bubble arises from the lips of the
+drowning. Perceive, we beseech, O Father, the little flying bubble,
+and--".
+
+Lean, although husky and ashamed, had suffered no hesitation up to this
+point, but he stopped with a hopeless feeling and looked at the corpse.
+
+The adjutant moved uneasily. "And from Thy superb heights--" he began,
+and then he too came to an end.
+
+"And from Thy superb heights," said Lean.
+
+The adjutant suddenly remembered a phrase in the back part of the
+Spitzbergen burial service, and he exploited it with the triumphant
+manner of a man who has recalled everything, and can go on.
+
+"Oh, God, have mercy--"
+
+"Oh, God, have mercy--" said Lean.
+
+"Mercy," repeated the adjutant, in quick failure.
+
+"Mercy," said Lean. And then he was moved by some violence of feeling,
+for he turned suddenly upon his two men and tigerishly said, "Throw the
+dirt in."
+
+The fire of the Rostina sharpshooters was accurate and continuous.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One of the aggrieved privates came forward with his shovel. He lifted
+his first shovel-load of earth, and for a moment of inexplicable
+hesitation it was held poised above this corpse, which from its chalk-
+blue face looked keenly out from the grave. Then the soldier emptied his
+shovel on--on the feet.
+
+Timothy Lean felt as if tons had been swiftly lifted from off his
+forehead. He had felt that perhaps the private might empty the shovel
+on--on the face. It had been emptied on the feet. There was a great
+point gained there--ha, ha!--the first shovelful had been emptied on
+the feet. How satisfactory!
+
+The adjutant began to babble. "Well, of course--a man we've messed with
+all these years--impossible--you can't, you know, leave your intimate
+friends rotting on the field. Go on, for God's sake, and shovel, you!"
+
+The man with the shovel suddenly ducked, grabbed his left arm with his
+right hand, and looked at his officer for orders. Lean picked the shovel
+from the ground. "Go to the rear," he said to the wounded man. He also
+addressed the other private. "You get under cover, too; I'll finish this
+business."
+
+The wounded man scrambled hard still for the top of the ridge without
+devoting any glances to the direction whence the bullets came, and the
+other man followed at an equal pace; but he was different, in that he
+looked back anxiously three times.
+
+This is merely the way--often--of the hit and unhit.
+
+Timothy Lean filled the shovel, hesitated, and then in a movement which
+was like a gesture of abhorrence he flung the dirt into the grave, and
+as it landed it made a sound--plop! Lean suddenly stopped and mopped his
+brow--a tired laborer.
+
+"Perhaps we have been wrong," said the adjutant. His glance wavered
+stupidly. "It might have been better if we hadn't buried him just at
+this time. Of course, if we advance to-morrow the body would have
+been--"
+
+"Damn you," said Lean, "shut your mouth!" He was not the senior officer.
+
+He again filled the shovel and flung the earth. Always the earth made
+that sound--plop! For a space Lean worked frantically, like a man
+digging himself out of danger.
+
+Soon there was nothing to be seen but the chalk-blue face. Lean filled
+the shovel. "Good God," he cried to the adjutant. "Why didn't you turn
+him somehow when you put him in? This--" Then Lean began to stutter.
+
+The adjutant understood. He was pale to the lips. "Go on, man," he
+cried, beseechingly, almost in a shout. Lean swung back the shovel. It
+went forward in a pendulum curve. When the earth landed it made a sound
+--plop!
+
+
+
+
+AN EPISODE OF WAR
+
+
+The lieutenant's rubber blanket lay on the ground, and upon it he had
+poured the company's supply of coffee. Corporals and other
+representatives of the grimy and hot-throated men who lined the
+breastwork had come for each squad's portion.
+
+The lieutenant was frowning and serious at this task of division. His
+lips pursed as he drew with his sword various crevices in the heap until
+brown squares of coffee, astoundingly equal in size, appeared on the
+blanket. He was on the verge of a great triumph in mathematics, and the
+corporals were thronging forward, each to reap a little square, when
+suddenly the lieutenant cried out and looked quickly at a man near him
+as if he suspected it was a case of personal assault. The others cried
+out also when they saw blood upon the lieutenant's sleeve.
+
+He had winced like a man stung, swayed dangerously, and then
+straightened. The sound of his hoarse breathing was plainly audible. He
+looked sadly, mystically, over the breastwork at the green face of a
+wood, where now were many little puffs of white smoke. During this
+moment the men about him gazed statue-like and silent, astonished and
+awed by this catastrophe which happened when catastrophes were not
+expected--when they had leisure to observe it.
+
+As the lieutenant stared at the wood, they too swung their heads, so
+that for another instant all hands, still silent, contemplated the
+distant forest as if their minds were fixed upon the mystery of a
+bullet's journey.
+
+The officer had, of course, been compelled to take his sword into his
+left hand. He did not hold it by the hilt. He gripped it at the middle
+of the blade, awkwardly. Turning his eyes from the hostile wood, he
+looked at the sword as he held it there, and seemed puzzled as to what
+to do with it, where to put it. In short, this weapon had of a sudden
+become a strange thing to him. He looked at it in a kind of
+stupefaction, as if he had been endowed with a trident, a sceptre, or a
+spade.
+
+Finally he tried to sheath it. To sheath a sword held by the left hand,
+at the middle of the blade, in a scabbard hung at the left hip, is a
+feat worthy of a sawdust ring. This wounded officer engaged in a
+desperate struggle with the sword and the wobbling scabbard, and during
+the time of it he breathed like a wrestler.
+
+But at this instant the men, the spectators, awoke from their stone-like
+poses and crowded forward sympathetically. The orderly-sergeant took the
+sword and tenderly placed it in the scabbard. At the time, he leaned
+nervously backward, and did not allow even his finger to brush the body
+of the lieutenant. A wound gives strange dignity to him who bears it.
+Well men shy from this new and terrible majesty. It is as if the wounded
+man's hand is upon the curtain which hangs before the revelations of all
+existence--the meaning of ants, potentates, wars, cities, sunshine,
+snow, a feather dropped from a bird's wing; and the power of it sheds
+radiance upon a bloody form, and makes the other men understand
+sometimes that they are little. His comrades look at him with large eyes
+thoughtfully. Moreover, they fear vaguely that the weight of a finger
+upon him might send him headlong, precipitate the tragedy, hurl him at
+once into the dim, grey unknown. And so the orderly-sergeant, while
+sheathing the sword, leaned nervously backward.
+
+There were others who proffered assistance. One timidly presented his
+shoulder and asked the lieutenant if he cared to lean upon it, but the
+latter waved him away mournfully. He wore the look of one who knows he
+is the victim of a terrible disease and understands his helplessness. He
+again stared over the breastwork at the forest, and then turning went
+slowly rearward. He held his right wrist tenderly in his left hand as if
+the wounded arm was made of very brittle glass.
+
+And the men in silence stared at the wood, then at the departing
+lieutenant--then at the wood, then at the lieutenant.
+
+As the wounded officer passed from the line of battle, he was enabled to
+see many things which as a participant in the fight were unknown to him.
+He saw a general on a black horse gazing over the lines of blue infantry
+at the green woods which veiled his problems. An aide galloped
+furiously, dragged his horse suddenly to a halt, saluted, and presented
+a paper. It was, for a wonder, precisely like an historical painting.
+
+To the rear of the general and his staff a group, composed of a bugler,
+two or three orderlies, and the bearer of the corps standard, all upon
+maniacal horses, were working like slaves to hold their ground,
+preserve, their respectful interval, while the shells boomed in the air
+about them, and caused their chargers to make furious quivering leaps.
+
+A battery, a tumultuous and shining mass, was swirling toward the right.
+The wild thud of hoofs, the cries of the riders shouting blame and
+praise, menace and encouragement, and, last the roar of the wheels, the
+slant of the glistening guns, brought the lieutenant to an intent pause.
+The battery swept in curves that stirred the heart; it made halts as
+dramatic as the crash of a wave on the rocks, and when it fled onward,
+this aggregation of wheels, levers, motors, had a beautiful unity, as if
+it were a missile. The sound of it was a war-chorus that reached into
+the depths of man's emotion.
+
+The lieutenant, still holding his arm as if it were of glass, stood
+watching this battery until all detail of it was lost, save the figures
+of the riders, which rose and fell and waved lashes over the black mass.
+
+Later, he turned his eyes toward the battle where the shooting sometimes
+crackled like bush-fires, sometimes sputtered with exasperating
+irregularity, and sometimes reverberated like the thunder. He saw the
+smoke rolling upward and saw crowds of men who ran and cheered, or stood
+and blazed away at the inscrutable distance.
+
+He came upon some stragglers, and they told him how to find the field
+hospital. They described its exact location. In fact, these men, no
+longer having part in the battle, knew more of it than others. They told
+the performance of every corps, every division, the opinion of every
+general. The lieutenant, carrying his wounded arm rearward, looked upon
+them with wonder.
+
+At the roadside a brigade was making coffee and buzzing with talk like a
+girls' boarding-school. Several officers came out to him and inquired
+concerning things of which he knew nothing. One, seeing his arm, began
+to scold. "Why, man, that's no way to do. You want to fix that thing."
+He appropriated the lieutenant and the lieutenant's wound. He cut the
+sleeve and laid bare the arm, every nerve of which softly fluttered
+under his touch. He bound his handkerchief over the wound, scolding away
+in the meantime. His tone allowed one to think that he was in the habit
+of being wounded every day. The lieutenant hung his head, feeling, in
+this presence, that he did not know how to be correctly wounded.
+
+The low white tents of the hospital were grouped around an old school-
+house. There was here a singular commotion. In the foreground two
+ambulances interlocked wheels in the deep mud. The drivers were tossing
+the blame of it back and forth, gesticulating and berating, while from
+the ambulances, both crammed with wounded, there came an occasional
+groan. An interminable crowd of bandaged men were coming and going.
+Great numbers sat under the trees nursing heads or arms or legs. There
+was a dispute of some kind raging on the steps of the school-house.
+Sitting with his back against a tree a man with a face as grey as a new
+army blanket was serenely smoking a corn-cob pipe. The lieutenant wished
+to rush forward and inform him that he was dying.
+
+A busy surgeon was passing near the lieutenant. "Good-morning," he said,
+with a friendly smile. Then he caught sight of the lieutenant's arm and
+his face at once changed. "Well, let's have a look at it." He seemed
+possessed suddenly of a great contempt for the lieutenant. This wound
+evidently placed the latter on a very low social plane. The doctor cried
+out impatiently, "What mutton-head had tied it up that way anyhow?" The
+lieutenant answered, "Oh, a man."
+
+When the wound was disclosed the doctor fingered it disdainfully.
+"Humph," he said. "You come along with me and I'll 'tend to you." His
+voice contained the same scorn as if he were saying, "You will have to
+go to jail."
+
+The lieutenant had been very meek, but now his face flushed, and he
+looked into the doctor's eyes. "I guess I won't have it amputated," he
+said.
+
+"Nonsense, man! Nonsense! Nonsense!" cried the doctor. "Come along, now.
+I won't amputate it. Come along. Don't be a baby."
+
+"Let go of me," said the lieutenant, holding back wrathfully, his glance
+fixed upon the door of the old school-house, as sinister to him as the
+portals of death.
+
+And this is the story of how the lieutenant lost his arm. When he
+reached home, his sisters, his mother, his wife sobbed for a long time
+at the sight of the flat sleeve. "Oh, well," he said, standing
+shamefaced amid these tears, "I don't suppose it matters so much as all
+that."
+
+
+
+
+AN EXPERIMENT IN MISERY
+
+
+It was late at night, and a fine rain was swirling softly down, causing
+the pavements to glisten with hue of steel and blue and yellow in the
+rays of the innumerable lights. A youth was trudging slowly, without
+enthusiasm, with his hands buried deep in his trousers' pockets, toward
+the downtown places where beds can be hired for coppers. He was clothed
+in an aged and tattered suit, and his derby was a marvel of dust-covered
+crown and torn rim. He was going forth to eat as the wanderer may eat,
+and sleep as the homeless sleep. By the time he had reached City Hall
+Park he was so completely plastered with yells of "bum" and "hobo," and
+with various unholy epithets that small boys had applied to him at
+intervals, that he was in a state of the most profound dejection. The
+sifting rain saturated the old velvet collar of his overcoat, and as the
+wet cloth pressed against his neck, he felt that there no longer could
+be pleasure in life. He looked about him searching for an outcast of
+highest degree that they too might share miseries, but the lights threw
+a quivering glare over rows and circles of deserted benches that
+glistened damply, showing patches of wet sod behind them. It seemed that
+their usual freights had fled on this night to better things. There were
+only squads of well-dressed Brooklyn people who swarmed towards the
+bridge.
+
+The young man loitered about for a time and then went shuffling off down
+Park Row. In the sudden descent in style of the dress of the crowd he
+felt relief, and as if he were at last in his own country. He began to
+see tatters that matched his tatters. In Chatham Square there were
+aimless men strewn in front of saloons and lodging-houses, standing
+sadly, patiently, reminding one vaguely of the attitudes of chickens in
+a storm. He aligned himself with these men, and turned slowly to occupy
+himself with the flowing life of the great street.
+
+Through the mists of the cold and storming night, the cable cars went in
+silent procession, great affairs shining with red and brass, moving with
+formidable power, calm and irresistible, dangerful and gloomy, breaking
+silence only by the loud fierce cry of the gong. Two rivers of people
+swarmed along the sidewalks, spattered with black mud, which made each
+shoe leave a scarlike impression. Overhead elevated trains with a shrill
+grinding of the wheels stopped at the station, which upon its leglike
+pillars seemed to resemble some monstrous kind of crab squatting over
+the street. The quick fat puffings of the engines could be heard. Down
+an alley there were somber curtains of purple and black, on which street
+lamps dully glittered like embroidered flowers.
+
+A saloon stood with a voracious air on a corner. A sign leaning against
+the front of the door-post announced "Free hot soup to-night!" The swing
+doors, snapping to and fro like ravenous lips, made gratified smacks as
+the saloon gorged itself with plump men, eating with astounding and
+endless appetite, smiling in some indescribable manner as the men came
+from all directions like sacrifices to a heathenish superstition.
+
+Caught by the delectable sign the young man allowed himself to be
+swallowed. A bartender placed a schooner of dark and portentous beer on
+the bar. Its monumental form upreared until the froth a-top was above
+the crown of the young man's brown derby.
+
+"Soup over there, gents," said the bartender affably. A little yellow
+man in rags and the youth grasped their schooners and went with speed
+toward a lunch counter, where a man with oily but imposing whiskers
+ladled genially from a kettle until he had furnished his two mendicants
+with a soup that was steaming hot, and in which there were little
+floating suggestions of chicken. The young man, sipping his broth, felt
+the cordiality expressed by the warmth of the mixture, and he beamed at
+the man with oily but imposing whiskers, who was presiding like a priest
+behind an altar. "Have some more, gents?" he inquired of the two sorry
+figures before him. The little yellow man accepted with a swift gesture,
+but the youth shook his head and went out, following a man whose
+wondrous seediness promised that he would have a knowledge of cheap
+lodging-houses.
+
+On the sidewalk he accosted the seedy man. "Say, do you know a cheap
+place to sleep?"
+
+The other hesitated for a time, gazing sideways. Finally he nodded in
+the direction of the street, "I sleep up there," he said, "when I've got
+the price."
+
+"How much?"
+
+"Ten cents."
+ The young man shook his head dolefully. "That's too rich for me."
+
+At that moment there approached the two a reeling man in strange
+garments. His head was a fuddle of bushy hair and whiskers, from which
+his eyes peered with a guilty slant. In a close scrutiny it was possible
+to distinguish the cruel lines of a mouth which looked as if its lips
+had just closed with satisfaction over some tender and piteous morsel.
+He appeared like an assassin steeped in crimes performed awkwardly.
+
+But at this time his voice was tuned to the coaxing key of an
+affectionate puppy. He looked at the men with wheedling eyes, and began
+to sing a little melody for charity.
+
+"Say, gents, can't yeh give a poor feller a couple of cents t' git a
+bed? I got five, and I gits anudder two I gits me a bed. Now, on th'
+square, gents, can't yeh jest gimme two cents t' git a bed? Now, yeh
+know how a respecter'ble gentlem'n feels when he's down on his luck, an'
+I--"
+
+The seedy man, staring with imperturbable countenance at a train which
+clattered overhead, interrupted in an expressionless voice--"Ah, go t'
+h----!"
+
+But the youth spoke to the prayerful assassin in tones of astonishment
+and inquiry. "Say, you must be crazy! Why don't yeh strike somebody that
+looks as if they had money?"
+
+The assassin, tottering about on his uncertain legs, and at intervals
+brushing imaginary obstacles from before his nose, entered into a long
+explanation of the psychology of the situation. It was so profound that
+it was unintelligible.
+
+When he had exhausted the subject, the young man said to him:
+
+"Let's see th' five cents."
+
+The assassin wore an expression of drunken woe at this sentence, filled
+with suspicion of him. With a deeply pained air he began to fumble in
+his clothing, his red hands trembling. Presently he announced in a voice
+of bitter grief, as if he had been betrayed--"There's on'y four."
+
+"Four," said the young man thoughtfully. "Well, look here, I'm a
+stranger here, an' if ye'll steer me to your cheap joint I'll find the
+other three."
+
+The assassin's countenance became instantly radiant with joy. His
+whiskers quivered with the wealth of his alleged emotions. He seized the
+young man's hand in a transport of delight and friendliness.
+
+"B' Gawd," he cried, "if ye'll do that, b' Gawd, I'd say yeh was a
+damned good fellow, I would, an' I'd remember yeh all m' life, I would,
+b' Gawd, an' if I ever got a chance I'd return the compliment"--he spoke
+with drunken dignity--"b' Gawd, I'd treat yeh white, I would, an' I'd
+allus remember yeh."
+
+The young man drew back, looking at the assassin coldly. "Oh, that's all
+right," he said. "You show me th' joint--that's all you've got t' do."
+
+The assassin, gesticulating gratitude, led the young man along a dark
+street. Finally he stopped before a little dusty door. He raised his
+hand impressively. "Look-a-here," he said, and there was a thrill of
+deep and ancient wisdom upon his face, "I've brought yeh here, an'
+that's my part, ain't it? If th' place don't suit yeh, yeh needn't git
+mad at me, need yeh? There won't be no bad feelin', will there?"
+
+"No," said the young man.
+
+The assassin waved his arm tragically, and led the march up the steep
+stairway. On the way the young man furnished the assassin with three
+pennies. At the top a man with benevolent spectacles looked at them
+through a hole in a board. He collected their money, wrote some names on
+a register, and speedily was leading the two men along a gloom-shrouded
+corridor.
+
+Shortly after the beginning of this journey the young man felt his liver
+turn white, for from the dark and secret places of the building there
+suddenly came to his nostrils strange and unspeakable odors, that
+assailed him like malignant diseases with wings. They seemed to be from
+human bodies closely packed in dens; the exhalations from a hundred
+pairs of reeking lips; the fumes from a thousand bygone debauches; the
+expression of a thousand present miseries.
+
+A man, naked save for a little snuff-colored undershirt, was parading
+sleepily along the corridor. He rubbed his eyes, and, giving vent to a
+prodigious yawn, demanded to be told the time.
+
+"Half-past one."
+
+The man yawned again. He opened a door, and for a moment his form was
+outlined against a black, opaque interior. To this door came the three
+men, and as it was again opened the unholy odors rushed out like fiends,
+so that the young man was obliged to struggle as against an overpowering
+wind.
+
+It was some time before the youth's eyes were good in the intense gloom
+within, but the man with benevolent spectacles led him skilfully,
+pausing but a moment to deposit the limp assassin upon a cot. He took
+the youth to a cot that lay tranquilly by the window, and showing him a
+tall locker for clothes that stood near the head with the ominous air of
+a tombstone, left him.
+
+The youth sat on his cot and peered about him. There was a gas-jet in a
+distant part of the room, that burned a small flickering orange-hued
+flame. It caused vast masses of tumbled shadows in all parts of the
+place, save where, immediately about it, there was a little grey haze.
+As the young man's eyes became used to the darkness, he could see upon
+the cots that thickly littered the floor the forms of men sprawled out,
+lying in deathlike silence, or heaving and snoring with tremendous
+effort, like stabbed fish.
+
+The youth locked his derby and his shoes in the mummy case near him, and
+then lay down with an old and familiar coat around his shoulders. A
+blanket he handed gingerly, drawing it over part of the coat. The cot
+was covered with leather, and as cold as melting snow. The youth was
+obliged to shiver for some time on this affair, which was like a slab.
+Presently, however, his chill gave him peace, and during this period of
+leisure from it he turned his head to stare at his friend the assassin,
+whom he could dimly discern where he lay sprawled on a cot in the
+abandon of a man filled with drink. He was snoring with incredible
+vigor. His wet hair and beard dimly glistened, and his inflamed nose
+shone with subdued lustre like a red light in a fog.
+
+Within reach of the youth's hand was one who lay with yellow breast and
+shoulders bare to the cold drafts. One arm hung over the side of the
+cot, and the fingers lay full length upon the wet cement floor of the
+room. Beneath the inky brows could be seen the eyes of the man exposed
+by the partly opened lids. To the youth it seemed that he and this
+corpse-like being were exchanging a prolonged stare, and that the other
+threatened with his eyes. He drew back, watching his neighbor from the
+shadows of his blanket edge. The man did not move once through the
+night, but lay in this stillness as of death like a body stretched out
+expectant of the surgeon's knife.
+
+And all through the room could be seen the tawny hues of naked flesh,
+limbs thrust into the darkness, projecting beyond the cots; upreared
+knees, arms hanging long and thin over the cot edges. For the most part
+they were statuesque, carven, dead. With the curious lockers standing
+all about like tombstones, there was a strange effect of a graveyard
+where bodies were merely flung.
+
+Yet occasionally could be seen limbs wildly tossing in fantastic
+nightmare gestures, accompanied by guttural cries, grunts, oaths. And
+there was one fellow off in a gloomy corner, who in his dreams was
+oppressed by some frightful calamity, for of a sudden he began to utter
+long wails that went almost like yells from a hound, echoing wailfully
+and weird through this chill place of tombstones where men lay like the
+dead.
+
+The sound in its high piercing beginnings, that dwindled to final
+melancholy moans, expressed a red and grim tragedy of the unfathomable
+possibilities of the man's dreams. But to the youth these were not
+merely the shrieks of a vision-pierced man: they were an utterance of
+the meaning of the room and its occupants. It was to him the protest of
+the wretch who feels the touch of the imperturbable granite wheels, and
+who then cries with an impersonal eloquence, with a strength not from
+him, giving voice to the wail of a whole section, a class, a people.
+This, weaving into the young man's brain, and mingling with his views of
+the vast and sombre shadows that, like mighty black fingers, curled
+around the naked bodies, made the young man so that he did not sleep,
+but lay carving the biographies for these men from his meagre
+experience. At times the fellow in the corner howled in a writhing agony
+of his imaginations.
+
+Finally a long lance-point of grey light shot through the dusty panes of
+the window. Without, the young man could see roofs drearily white in the
+dawning. The point of light yellowed and grew brighter, until the golden
+rays of the morning sun came in bravely and strong. They touched with
+radiant color the form of a small fat man, who snored in stuttering
+fashion. His round and shiny bald head glowed suddenly with the valor of
+a decoration. He sat up, blinked at the sun, swore fretfully, and pulled
+his blanket over the ornamental splendors of his head.
+
+The youth contentedly watched this rout of the shadows before the bright
+spears of the sun, and presently he slumbered. When he awoke he heard
+the voice of the assassin raised in valiant curses. Putting up his head,
+he perceived his comrade seated on the side of the cot engaged in
+scratching his neck with long finger-nails that rasped like files.
+
+"Hully Jee, dis is a new breed. They've got can-openers on their feet."
+He continued in a violent tirade.
+
+The young man hastily unlocked his closet and took out his shoes and
+hat. As he sat on the side of the cot lacing his shoes, he glanced about
+and saw that daylight had made the room comparatively commonplace and
+uninteresting. The men, whose faces seemed stolid, serene or absent,
+were engaged in dressing, while a great crackle of bantering
+conversation arose.
+
+A few were parading in unconcerned nakedness. Here and there were men of
+brawn, whose skins shone clear and ruddy. They took splendid poses,
+standing massively like chiefs. When they had dressed in their ungainly
+garments there was an extraordinary change. They then showed bumps and
+deficiencies of all kinds.
+
+There were others who exhibited many deformities. Shoulders were
+slanting, humped, pulled this way and pulled that way. And notable among
+these latter men was the little fat man who had refused to allow his
+head to be glorified. His pudgy form, builded like a pear, bustled to
+and fro, while he swore in fishwife fashion. It appeared that some
+article of his apparel had vanished.
+
+The young man attired speedily, and went to his friend the assassin. At
+first the latter looked dazed at the sight of the youth. This face
+seemed to be appealing to him through the cloud wastes of his memory. He
+scratched his neck and reflected. At last he grinned, a broad smile
+gradually spreading until his countenance was a round illumination.
+"Hello, Willie," he cried cheerily.
+
+"Hello," said the young man. "Are yeh ready t' fly?"
+
+"Sure." The assassin tied his shoe carefully with some twine and came
+ambling.
+
+When he reached the street the young man experienced no sudden relief
+from unholy atmospheres. He had forgotten all about them, and had been
+breathing naturally, and with no sensation of discomfort or distress.
+
+He was thinking of these things as he walked along the street, when he
+was suddenly startled by feeling the assassin's hand, trembling with
+excitement, clutching his arm, and when the assassin spoke, his voice
+went into quavers from a supreme agitation.
+
+"I'll be hully, bloomin' blowed if there wasn't a feller with a
+nightshirt on up there in that joint."
+
+The youth was bewildered for a moment, but presently he turned to smile
+indulgently at the assassin's humor.
+
+"Oh, you're a d--d liar," he merely said.
+
+Whereupon the assassin began to gesture extravagantly, and take oath by
+strange gods. He frantically placed himself at the mercy of remarkable
+fates if his tale were not true.
+
+"Yes, he did! I cross m' heart thousan' times!" he protested, and at the
+moment his eyes were large with amazement, his mouth wrinkled in
+unnatural glee.
+
+"Yessir! A nightshirt! A hully white nightshirt!"
+
+"You lie!"
+
+"No, sir! I hope ter die b'fore I kin git anudder ball if there wasn't a
+jay wid a hully, bloomin' white nightshirt!"
+
+His face was filled with the infinite wonder of it. "A hully white
+nightshirt," he continually repeated.
+
+The young man saw the dark entrance to a basement restaurant. There was
+a sign which read "No mystery about our hash"! and there were other age-
+stained and world-battered legends which told him that the place was
+within his means. He stopped before it and spoke to the assassin. "I
+guess I'll git somethin' t' eat."
+
+At this the assassin, for some reason, appeared to be quite embarrassed.
+He gazed at the seductive front of the eating place for a moment. Then
+he started slowly up the street. "Well, good-bye, Willie," he said
+bravely.
+
+For an instant the youth studied the departing figure. Then he called
+out, "Hol' on a minnet." As they came together he spoke in a certain
+fierce way, as if he feared that the other would think him to be
+charitable. "Look-a-here, if yeh wanta git some breakfas' I'll lend yeh
+three cents t' do it with. But say, look-a-here, you've gota git out an'
+hustle. I ain't goin' t' support yeh, or I'll go broke b'fore night. I
+ain't no millionaire."
+
+"I take me oath, Willie," said the assassin earnestly, "th' on'y thing I
+really needs is a ball. Me t'roat feels like a fryin'-pan. But as I
+can't get a ball, why, th' next bes' thing is breakfast, an' if yeh do
+that for me, b'Gawd, I say yeh was th' whitest lad I ever see."
+
+They spent a few moments in dexterous exchanges of phrases, in which
+they each protested that the other was, as the assassin had originally
+said, "a respecter'ble gentlem'n." And they concluded with mutual
+assurances that they were the souls of intelligence and virtue. Then
+they went into the restaurant.
+
+There was a long counter, dimly lighted from hidden sources. Two or
+three men in soiled white aprons rushed here and there.
+
+The youth bought a bowl of coffee for two cents and a roll for one cent.
+The assassin purchased the same. The bowls were webbed with brown seams,
+and the tin spoons wore an air of having emerged from the first pyramid.
+Upon them were black mosslike encrustations of age, and they were bent
+and scarred from the attacks of long-forgotten teeth. But over their
+repast the wanderers waxed warm and mellow. The assassin grew affable as
+the hot mixture went soothingly down his parched throat, and the young
+man felt courage flow in his veins.
+
+Memories began to throng in on the assassin, and he brought forth long
+tales, intricate, incoherent, delivered with a chattering swiftness as
+from an old woman. "--great job out'n Orange. Boss keep yeh hustlin'
+though all time. I was there three days, and then I went an' ask 'im t'
+lend me a dollar. 'G-g-go ter the devil,' he ses, an' I lose me job."
+
+"South no good. Damn niggers work for twenty-five an' thirty cents a
+day. Run white man out. Good grub, though. Easy livin'."
+
+"Yas; useter work little in Toledo, raftin' logs. Make two or three
+dollars er day in the spring. Lived high. Cold as ice, though, in the
+winter."
+
+"I was raised in northern N'York. O-a-ah, yeh jest oughto live there. No
+beer ner whisky, though, way off in the woods. But all th' good hot grub
+yeh can eat. B'Gawd, I hung around there long as I could till th' ol'
+man fired me. 'Git t' hell outa here, yeh wuthless skunk, git t' hell
+outa here, an' go die,' he ses. 'You're a hell of a father,' I ses, 'you
+are,' an' I quit 'im."
+
+As they were passing from the dim eating place, they encountered an old
+man who was trying to steal forth with a tiny package of food, but a
+tall man with an indomitable moustache stood dragon fashion, barring the
+way of escape. They heard the old man raise a plaintive protest. "Ah,
+you always want to know what I take out, and you never see that I
+usually bring a package in here from my place of business."
+
+As the wanderers trudged slowly along Park Row, the assassin began to
+expand and grow blithe. "B'Gawd, we've been livin' like kings," he said,
+smacking appreciative lips.
+
+"Look out, or we'll have t' pay fer it t'night," said the youth with
+gloomy warning.
+
+But the assassin refused to turn his gaze toward the future. He went
+with a limping step, into which he injected a suggestion of lamblike
+gambols. His mouth was wreathed in a red grin.
+
+In the City Hall Park the two wanderers sat down in the little circle of
+benches sanctified by traditions of their class. They huddled in their
+old garments, slumbrously conscious of the march of the hours which for
+them had no meaning.
+
+The people of the street hurrying hither and thither made a blend of
+black figures changing yet frieze-like. They walked in their good
+clothes as upon important missions, giving no gaze to the two wanderers
+seated upon the benches. They expressed to the young man his infinite
+distance from all that he valued. Social position, comfort, the
+pleasures of living, were unconquerable kingdoms. He felt a sudden awe.
+
+And in the background a multitude of buildings, of pitiless hues and
+sternly high, were to him emblematic of a nation forcing its regal head
+into the clouds, throwing no downward glances; in the sublimity of its
+aspirations ignoring the wretches who may flounder at its feet. The roar
+of the city in his ear was to him the confusion of strange tongues,
+babbling heedlessly; it was the clink of coin, the voice if the city's
+hopes which were to him no hopes.
+
+He confessed himself an outcast, and his eyes from under the lowered rim
+of his hat began to glance guiltily, wearing the criminal expression
+that comes with certain convictions.
+
+
+
+
+THE DUEL THAT WAS NOT FOUGHT
+
+
+Patsy Tulligan was not as wise as seven owls, but his courage could
+throw a shadow as long as the steeple of a cathedral. There were men on
+Cherry Street who had whipped him five times, but they all knew that
+Patsy would be as ready for the sixth time as if nothing had happened.
+
+Once he and two friends had been away up on Eighth Avenue, far out of
+their country, and upon their return journey that evening they stopped
+frequently in saloons until they were as independent of their
+surroundings as eagles, and cared much less about thirty days on
+Blackwell's.
+
+On Lower Sixth Avenue they paused in a saloon where there was a good
+deal of lamp-glare and polished wood to be seen from the outside, and
+within, the mellow light shone on much furbished brass and more polished
+wood. It was a better saloon than they were in the habit of seeing, but
+they did not mind it. They sat down at one of the little tables that
+were in a row parallel to the bar and ordered beer. They blinked
+stolidly at the decorations, the bartender, and the other customers.
+When anything transpired they discussed it with dazzling frankness, and
+what they said of it was as free as air to the other people in the
+place.
+
+At midnight there were few people in the saloon. Patsy and his friends
+still sat drinking. Two well-dressed men were at another table, smoking
+cigars slowly and swinging back in their chairs. They occupied
+themselves with themselves in the usual manner, never betraying by a
+wink of an eyelid that they knew that other folk existed. At another
+table directly behind Patsy and his companions was a slim little Cuban,
+with miraculously small feet and hands, and with a youthful touch of
+down upon his lip. As he lifted his cigarette from time to time his
+little finger was bended in dainty fashion, and there was a green flash
+when a huge emerald ring caught the light. The bartender came often with
+his little brass tray. Occasionally Patsy and his two friends
+quarrelled.
+
+Once this little Cuban happened to make some slight noise and Patsy
+turned his head to observe him. Then Patsy made a careless and rather
+loud comment to his two friends. He used a word which is no more than
+passing the time of day down in Cherry Street, but to the Cuban it was a
+dagger-point. There was a harsh scraping sound as a chair was pushed
+swiftly back.
+
+The little Cuban was upon his feet. His eyes were shining with a rage
+that flashed there like sparks as he glared at Patsy. His olive face had
+turned a shade of grey from his anger. Withal his chest was thrust out
+in portentous dignity, and his hand, still grasping his wine-glass, was
+cool and steady, the little finger still bended, the great emerald
+gleaming upon it. The others, motionless, stared at him.
+
+"Sir," he began ceremoniously. He spoke gravely and in a slow way, his
+tone coming in a marvel of self-possessed cadences from between those
+lips which quivered with wrath. "You have insult me. You are a dog, a
+hound, a cur. I spit upon you. I must have some of your blood."
+
+Patsy looked at him over his shoulder.
+
+"What's th' matter wi' che?" he demanded. He did not quite understand
+the words of this little man who glared at him steadily, but he knew
+that it was something about fighting. He snarled with the readiness of
+his class and heaved his shoulders contemptuously. "Ah, what's eatin'
+yeh? Take a walk! You hain't got nothin' t' do with me, have yeh? Well,
+den, go sit on yerself."
+
+And his companions leaned back valorously in their chairs, and
+scrutinized this slim young fellow who was addressing Patsy.
+
+"What's de little Dago chewin' about?"
+
+"He wants t' scrap!"
+
+"What!"
+
+The Cuban listened with apparent composure. It was only when they
+laughed that his body cringed as if he was receiving lashes. Presently
+he put down his glass and walked over to their table. He proceeded
+always with the most impressive deliberation.
+
+"Sir," he began again. "You have insult me. I must have s-s-satisfac-
+shone. I must have your body upon the point of my sword. In my country
+you would already be dead. I must have s-s-satisfac-shone."
+
+Patsy had looked at the Cuban with a trifle of bewilderment. But at last
+his face began to grow dark with belligerency, his mouth curved in that
+wide sneer with which he would confront an angel of darkness. He arose
+suddenly in his seat and came towards the little Cuban. He was going to
+be impressive too.
+
+"Say, young feller, if yeh go shootin' off yer face at me, I'll wipe d'
+joint wid yeh. What'cher gaffin' about, hey? Are yeh givin' me er jolly?
+Say, if yeh pick me up fer a cinch, I'll fool yeh. Dat's what! Don't
+take me fer no dead easy mug." And as he glowered at the little Cuban,
+he ended his oration with one eloquent word, "Nit!"
+
+The bartender nervously polished his bar with a towel, and kept his eyes
+fastened upon the men. Occasionally he became transfixed with interest,
+leaning forward with one hand upon the edge of the bar and the other
+holding the towel grabbed in a lump, as if he had been turned into
+bronze when in the very act of polishing.
+
+The Cuban did not move when Patsy came toward him and delivered his
+oration. At its conclusion he turned his livid face toward where, above
+him, Patsy was swaggering and heaving his shoulders in a consummate
+display of bravery and readiness. The Cuban, in his clear, tense tones,
+spoke one word. It was the bitter insult. It seemed fairly to spin from
+his lips and crackle in the air like breaking glass.
+
+Every man save the little Cuban made an electric movement. Patsy roared
+a black oath and thrust himself forward until he towered almost directly
+above the other man. His fists were doubled into knots of bone and hard
+flesh. The Cuban had raised a steady finger.
+
+"If you touch me wis your hand, I will keel you."
+
+The two well-dressed men had come swiftly, uttering protesting cries.
+They suddenly intervened in this second of time in which Patsy had
+sprung forward and the Cuban had uttered his threat. The four men were
+now a tossing, arguing; violent group, one well-dressed man lecturing
+the Cuban, and the other holding off Patsy, who was now wild with rage,
+loudly repeating the Cuban's threat, and maneuvering and struggling to
+get at him for revenge's sake.
+
+The bartender, feverishly scouring away with his towel, and at times
+pacing to and fro with nervous and excited tread, shouted out--
+
+"Say, for heaven's sake, don't fight in here. If yeh wanta fight, go out
+in the street and fight all yeh please. But don't fight in here."
+
+Patsy knew one only thing, and this he kept repeating:
+
+"Well, he wants t' scrap! I didn't begin dis! He wants t' scrap."
+
+The well-dressed man confronting him continually replied--
+
+"Oh, well, now, look here, he's only a lad. He don't know what he's
+doing. He's crazy mad. You wouldn't slug a kid like that."
+
+Patsy and his aroused companions, who cursed and growled, were
+persistent with their argument. "Well, he wants t' scrap!" The whole
+affair was as plain as daylight when one saw this great fact. The
+interference and intolerable discussion brought the three of them
+forward, battleful and fierce.
+
+"What's eatin' you, anyhow?" they demanded. "Dis ain't your business, is
+it? What business you got shootin' off your face?"
+
+The other peacemaker was trying to restrain the little Cuban, who had
+grown shrill and violent.
+
+"If he touch me wis his hand I will keel him. We must fight like
+gentlemen or else I keel him when he touch me wis his hand."
+
+The man who was fending off Patsy comprehended these sentences that were
+screamed behind his back, and he explained to Patsy.
+
+"But he wants to fight you with swords. With swords, you know."
+
+The Cuban, dodging around the peacemakers, yelled in Patsy's face--
+
+"Ah, if I could get you before me wis my sword! Ah! Ah! A-a-ah!" Patsy
+made a furious blow with a swift fist, but the peacemakers bucked
+against his body suddenly like football players.
+
+Patsy was greatly puzzled. He continued doggedly to try to get near
+enough to the Cuban to punch him. To these attempts the Cuban replied
+savagely--
+
+"If you touch me wis your hand, I will cut your heart in two piece."
+
+At last Patsy said--"Well, if he's so dead stuck on fightin' wid swords,
+I'll fight 'im. Soitenly! I'll fight 'im." All this palaver had
+evidently tired him, and he now puffed out his lips with the air of a
+man who is willing to submit to any conditions if he can only bring on
+the row soon enough. He swaggered, "I'll fight 'im wid swords. Let 'im
+bring on his swords, an' I'll fight 'im 'til he's ready t' quit."
+
+The two well-dressed men grinned. "Why, look here," they said to Patsy,
+"he'd punch you full of holes. Why he's a fencer. You can't fight him
+with swords. He'd kill you in 'bout a minute."
+
+"Well, I'll giv' 'im a go at it, anyhow," said Patsy, stouthearted and
+resolute. "I'll giv' 'im a go at it, anyhow, an' I'll stay wid 'im as
+long as I kin."
+
+As for the Cuban, his lithe body was quivering in an ecstasy of the
+muscles. His face radiant with a savage joy, he fastened his glance upon
+Patsy, his eyes gleaming with a gloating, murderous light. A most
+unspeakable, animal-like rage was in his expression.
+
+"Ah! ah! He will fight me! Ah!" He bended unconsciously in the posture
+of a fencer. He had all the quick, springy movements of a skilful
+swordsman. "Ah, the b-r-r-rute! The b-r-r-rute! I will stick him like a
+pig!"
+
+The two peacemakers, still grinning broadly, were having a great time
+with Patsy.
+
+"Why, you infernal idiot, this man would slice you all up. You better
+jump off the bridge if you want to commit suicide. You wouldn't stand a
+ghost of a chance to live ten seconds."
+
+Patsy was as unshaken as granite. "Well, if he wants t' fight wid
+swords, he'll get it. I'll giv' 'im a go at it, anyhow."
+
+One man said--"Well, have you got a sword? Do you know what a sword is?
+Have you got a sword?"
+
+"No, I ain't got none," said Patsy honestly, "but I kin git one." Then
+he added valiantly--"An' quick, too."
+
+The two men laughed. "Why, can't you understand it would be sure death
+to fight a sword duel with this fellow?"
+
+"Dat's all right! See? I know me own business. If he wants t' fight one
+of dees d--n duels, I'm in it, understan'"
+
+"Have you ever fought one, you fool?"
+
+"No, I ain't. But I will fight one, dough! I ain't no muff. If he wants
+t' fight a duel, by Gawd, I'm wid 'im! D'yeh understan' dat!" Patsy
+cocked his hat and swaggered. He was getting very serious.
+
+The little Cuban burst out--"Ah, come on, sirs: come on! We can take
+cab. Ah, you big cow, I will stick you, I will stick you. Ah, you will
+look very beautiful, very beautiful. Ah, come on, sirs. We will stop at
+hotel--my hotel. I there have weapons."
+
+"Yeh will, will yeh? Yeh bloomin' little black Dago!" cried Patsy in
+hoarse and maddened reply to the personal part of the Cuban's speech. He
+stepped forward. "Git yer d--n swords," he commanded. "Git yer swords.
+Git 'em quick! I'll fight wi' che! I'll fight wid anyt'ing, too! See?
+I'll fight yeh wid a knife an' fork if yeh say so! I'll fight yer
+standin' up er sittin' down!" Patsy delivered this intense oration with
+sweeping, intensely emphatic gestures, his hands stretched out
+eloquently, his jaw thrust forward, his eyes glaring.
+
+"Ah!" cried the little Cuban joyously. "Ah, you are in very pretty
+temper. Ah, how I will cut your heart in two piece, my dear, d-e-a-r
+friend." His eyes, too, shone like carbuncles, with a swift, changing
+glitter, always fastened upon Patsy's face.
+
+The two peacemakers were perspiring and in despair. One of them blurted
+out--
+
+"Well, I'll be blamed if this ain't the most ridiculous thing I ever
+saw."
+
+The other said--"For ten dollars I'd be tempted to let these two
+infernal blockheads have their duel."
+
+Patsy was strutting to and fro, and conferring grandly with his friends.
+
+"He took me for a muff. He t'ought he was goin' t' bluff me out, talkin'
+'bout swords. He'll get fooled." He addressed the Cuban--"You're a fine
+little dirty picter of a scrapper, ain't che? I'll chew yez up, dat's
+what I will!"
+
+There began then some rapid action. The patience of well-dressed men is
+not an eternal thing. It began to look as if it would at last be a fight
+with six corners to it. The faces of the men were shining red with
+anger. They jostled each other defiantly, and almost every one blazed
+out at three or four of the others. The bartender had given up
+protesting. He swore for a time and banged his glasses. Then he jumped
+the bar and ran out of the saloon, cursing sullenly.
+
+When he came back with a policeman, Patsy and the Cuban were preparing
+to depart together. Patsy was delivering his last oration--
+
+"I'll fight yer wid swords! Sure I will! Come ahead, Dago! I'll fight
+yeh anywheres wid anyt'ing! We'll have a large, juicy scrap, an' don't
+yeh forgit dat! I'm right wid yez. I ain't no muff! I scrap with a man
+jest as soon as he ses scrap, an' if yeh wanta scrap, I'm yer kitten.
+Understan' dat?"
+
+The policeman said sharply--"Come, now; what's all this?" He had a
+distinctly business air.
+
+The little Cuban stepped forward calmly. "It is none of your business."
+
+The policeman flushed to his ears. "What?"
+
+One well-dressed man touched the other on the sleeve. "Here's the time
+to skip," he whispered. They halted a block away from the saloon and
+watched the policeman pull the Cuban through the door. There was a
+minute of scuffle on the sidewalk, and into this deserted street at
+midnight fifty people appeared at once as if from the sky to watch it.
+
+At last the three Cherry Hill men came from the saloon, and swaggered
+with all their old valor toward the peacemakers.
+
+"Ah," said Patsy to them, "he was so hot talkin' about this duel
+business, but I would a-given 'im a great scrap, an' don't yeh forgit
+it."
+
+For Patsy was not as wise as seven owls, but his courage could throw a
+shadow as long as the steeple of a cathedral.
+
+
+
+
+A DESERTION
+
+
+The yellow gaslight that came with an effect of difficulty through the
+dust-stained windows on either side of the door gave strange hues to the
+faces and forms of the three women who stood gabbling in the hallway of
+the tenement. They made rapid gestures, and in the background their
+enormous shadows mingled in terrific conflict.
+
+"Aye, she ain't so good as he thinks she is, I'll bet. He can watch over
+'er an' take care of 'er all he pleases, but when she wants t' fool 'im,
+she'll fool 'im. An' how does he know she ain't foolin' im' now?"
+
+"Oh, he thinks he's keepin' 'er from goin' t' th' bad, he does. Oh, yes.
+He ses she's too purty t' let run round alone. Too purty! Huh! My
+Sadie--"
+
+"Well, he keeps a clost watch on 'er, you bet. On'y las' week, she met
+my boy Tim on th' stairs, an' Tim hadn't said two words to 'er b'fore
+th' ol' man begin to holler. 'Dorter, dorter, come here, come here!'"
+
+At this moment a young girl entered from the street, and it was evident
+from the injured expression suddenly assumed by the three gossipers that
+she had been the object of their discussion. She passed them with a
+slight nod, and they swung about into a row to stare after her.
+
+On her way up the long flights the girl unfastened her veil. One could
+then clearly see the beauty of her eyes, but there was in them a certain
+furtiveness that came near to marring the effects. It was a peculiar
+fixture of gaze, brought from the street, as of one who there saw a
+succession of passing dangers with menaces aligned at every corner.
+
+On the top floor, she pushed open a door and then paused on the
+threshold, confronting an interior that appeared black and flat like a
+curtain. Perhaps some girlish idea of hobgoblins assailed her then, for
+she called in a little breathless voice, "Daddie!"
+
+There was no reply. The fire in the cooking-stove in the room crackled
+at spasmodic intervals. One lid was misplaced, and the girl could now
+see that this fact created a little flushed crescent upon the ceiling.
+Also, a series of tiny windows in the stove caused patches of red upon
+the floor. Otherwise, the room was heavily draped with shadows.
+
+The girl called again, "Daddie!"
+
+Yet there was no reply.
+
+"Oh, Daddie!"
+
+Presently she laughed as one familiar with the humors of an old man.
+"Oh, I guess yer cussin' mad about yer supper, Dad," she said, and she
+almost entered the room, but suddenly faltered, overcome by a feminine
+instinct to fly from this black interior, peopled with imagined dangers.
+
+Again she called, "Daddie!" Her voice had an accent of appeal. It was as
+if she knew she was foolish but yet felt obliged to insist upon being
+reassured. "Oh, Daddie!"
+
+Of a sudden a cry of relief, a feminine announcement that the stars
+still hung, burst from her. For, according to some mystic process, the
+smoldering coals of the fire went aflame with sudden, fierce brilliance,
+splashing parts of the walls, the floor, the crude furniture, with a hue
+of blood-red. And in the light of this dramatic outburst of light, the
+girl saw her father seated at a table with his back turned toward her.
+
+She entered the room, then, with an aggrieved air, her logic evidently
+concluding that somebody was to blame for her nervous fright. "Oh, yer
+on'y sulkin' 'bout yer supper. I thought mebbe ye'd gone somewheres."
+
+Her father made no reply. She went over to a shelf in the corner, and,
+taking a little lamp, she lit it and put it where it would give her
+light as she took off her hat and jacket in front of the tiny mirror.
+Presently she began to bustle among the cooking utensils that were
+crowded into the sink, and as she worked she rattled talk at her father,
+apparently disdaining his mood.
+
+"I'd 'a' come home earlier t'night, Dad, on'y that fly foreman, he kep'
+me in th' shop 'til half-past six. What a fool! He came t' me, yeh know,
+an' he ses, 'Nell, I wanta give yeh some brotherly advice.' Oh, I know
+him an' his brotherly advice. 'I wanta give yeh some brotherly advice.
+Yer too purty, Nell,' he ses, 't' be workin' in this shop an' paradin'
+through the streets alone, without somebody t' give yeh good brotherly
+advice, an' I wanta warn yeh, Nell. I'm a bad man, but I ain't as bad as
+some, an' I wanta warn yeh.' 'Oh, g'long 'bout yer business,' I ses. I
+know 'im. He's like all of 'em, on'y he's a little slyer. I know 'im.
+'You g'long 'bout yer business,' I ses. Well, he ses after a while that
+he guessed some evenin' he'd come up an' see me. 'Oh, yeh will,' I ses,
+'yeh will? Well, you jest let my ol' man ketch yeh comin' foolin' 'round
+our place. Yeh'll wish yeh went t' some other girl t' give brotherly
+advice.' 'What th' 'ell do I care fer yer father?' he ses. 'What's he t'
+me?' 'If he throws yeh downstairs, yeh'll care for 'im,' I ses. 'Well,'
+he ses, 'I'll come when 'e ain't in, b' Gawd, I'll come when 'e ain't
+in.' 'Oh, he's allus in when it means takin' care 'o me,' I ses. 'Don't
+yeh fergit it, either. When it comes t' takin' care o' his dorter, he's
+right on deck every single possible time.'"
+
+After a time, she turned and addressed cheery words to the old man.
+"Hurry up th' fire, Daddie! We'll have supper pretty soon."
+
+But still her father was silent, and his form in its sullen posture was
+motionless.
+
+At this, the girl seemed to see the need of the inauguration of a
+feminine war against a man out of temper. She approached him breathing
+soft, coaxing syllables.
+
+"Daddie! Oh, Daddie! O--o--oh, Daddie!"
+
+It was apparent from a subtle quality of valor in her tones that this
+manner of onslaught upon his moods had usually been successful, but to-
+night it had no quick effect. The words, coming from her lips, were like
+the refrain of an old ballad, but the man remained stolid.
+
+"Daddie! My Daddie! Oh, Daddie, are yeh mad at me, really--truly mad at
+me!"
+
+She touched him lightly upon the arm. Should he have turned then he
+would have seen the fresh, laughing face, with dew-sparkling eyes, close
+to his own.
+
+"Oh, Daddie! My Daddie! Pretty Daddie!"
+
+She stole her arm about his neck, and then slowly bended her face toward
+his. It was the action of a queen who knows that she reigns
+notwithstanding irritations, trials, tempests.
+
+But suddenly, from this position, she leaped backward with the mad
+energy of a frightened colt. Her face was in this instant turned to a
+grey, featureless thing of horror. A yell, wild and hoarse as a brute-
+cry, burst from her. "Daddie!" She flung herself to a place near the
+door, where she remained, crouching, her eyes staring at the motionless
+figure, spattered by the quivering flashes from the fire. Her arms
+extended, and her frantic fingers at once besought and repelled. There
+was in them an expression of eagerness to caress and an expression of
+the most intense loathing. And the girl's hair that had been a splendor,
+was in these moments changed to a disordered mass that hung and swayed
+in witchlike fashion.
+
+Again, a terrible cry burst from her. It was more than the shriek of
+agony--it was directed, personal, addressed to him in the chair, the
+first word of a tragic conversation with the dead.
+
+It seemed that when she had put her arm about its neck, she had jostled
+the corpse in such a way that now she and it were face to face. The
+attitude expressed an intention of arising from the table. The eyes,
+fixed upon hers, were filled with an unspeakable hatred.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The cries of the girl aroused thunders in the tenement. There was a loud
+slamming of doors, and presently there was a roar of feet upon the
+boards of the stairway. Voices rang out sharply.
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"What's th' matter?"
+
+"He's killin' her!"
+
+"Slug 'im with anythin' yeh kin lay hold of, Jack!"
+
+But over all this came the shrill, shrewish tones of a woman. "Ah, th'
+damned ol' fool, he's drivin' 'er inteh th' street--that's what he's
+doin'. He's drivin' 'er inteh th' street."
+
+
+
+
+A DARK-BROWN DOG
+
+
+A child was standing on a street-corner. He leaned with one shoulder
+against a high board fence and swayed the other to and fro, the while
+kicking carelessly at the gravel.
+
+Sunshine beat upon the cobbles, and a lazy summer wind raised yellow
+dust which trailed in clouds down the avenue. Clattering trucks moved
+with indistinctness through it. The child stood dreamily gazing.
+
+After a time, a little dark-brown dog came trotting with an intent air
+down the sidewalk. A short rope was dragging from his neck. Occasionally
+he trod upon the end of it and stumbled.
+
+He stopped opposite the child, and the two regarded each other. The dog
+hesitated for a moment, but presently he made some little advances with
+his tail. The child put out his hand and called him. In an apologetic
+manner the dog came close, and the two had an interchange of friendly
+pattings and waggles. The dog became more enthusiastic with each moment
+of the interview, until with his gleeful caperings he threatened to
+overturn the child. Whereupon the child lifted his hand and struck the
+dog a blow upon the head.
+
+This thing seemed to overpower and astonish the little dark-brown dog,
+and wounded him to the heart. He sank down in despair at the child's
+feet. When the blow was repeated, together with an admonition in
+childish sentences, he turned over upon his back, and held his paws in a
+peculiar manner. At the same time with his ears and his eyes he offered
+a small prayer to the child.
+
+He looked so comical on his back, and holding his paws peculiarly, that
+the child was greatly amused and gave him little taps repeatedly, to
+keep him so. But the little dark-brown dog took this chastisement in the
+most serious way and no doubt considered that he had committed some
+grave crime, for he wriggled contritely and showed his repentance in
+every way that was in his power. He pleaded with the child and
+petitioned him, and offered more prayers.
+
+At last the child grew weary of this amusement and turned toward home.
+The dog was praying at the time. He lay on his back and turned his eyes
+upon the retreating form.
+
+Presently he struggled to his feet and started after the child. The
+latter wandered in a perfunctory way toward his home, stopping at times
+to investigate various matters. During one of these pauses he discovered
+the little dark-brown dog who was following him with the air of a
+footpad.
+
+The child beat his pursuer with a small stick he had found. The dog lay
+down and prayed until the child had finished, and resumed his journey.
+Then he scrambled erect and took up the pursuit again.
+
+On the way to his home the child turned many times and beat the dog,
+proclaiming with childish gestures that he held him in contempt as an
+unimportant dog, with no value save for a moment. For being this quality
+of animal the dog apologized and eloquently expressed regret, but he
+continued stealthily to follow the child. His manner grew so very guilty
+that he slunk like an assassin.
+
+When the child reached his doorstep, the dog was industriously ambling a
+few yards in the rear. He became so agitated with shame when he again
+confronted the child that he forgot the dragging rope. He tripped upon
+it and fell forward.
+
+The child sat down on the step and the two had another interview. During
+it the dog greatly exerted himself to please the child. He performed a
+few gambols with such abandon that the child suddenly saw him to be a
+valuable thing. He made a swift, avaricious charge and seized the rope.
+
+He dragged his captive into a hall and up many long stairways in a dark
+tenement. The dog made willing efforts, but he could not hobble very
+skilfully up the stairs because he was very small and soft, and at last
+the pace of the engrossed child grew so energetic that the dog became
+panic-stricken. In his mind he was being dragged toward a grim unknown.
+His eyes grew wild with the terror of it. He began to wiggle his head
+frantically and to brace his legs.
+
+The child redoubled his exertions. They had a battle on the stairs. The
+child was victorious because he was completely absorbed in his purpose,
+and because the dog was very small. He dragged his acquirement to the
+door of his home, and finally with triumph across the threshold.
+
+No one was in. The child sat down on the floor and made overtures to the
+dog. These the dog instantly accepted. He beamed with affection upon his
+new friend. In a short time they were firm and abiding comrades.
+
+When the child's family appeared, they made a great row. The dog was
+examined and commented upon and called names. Scorn was leveled at him
+from all eyes, so that he became much embarrassed and drooped like a
+scorched plant. But the child went sturdily to the center of the floor,
+and, at the top of his voice, championed the dog. It happened that he
+was roaring protestations, with his arms clasped about the dog's neck,
+when the father of the family came in from work.
+
+The parent demanded to know what the blazes they were making the kid
+howl for. It was explained in many words that the infernal kid wanted to
+introduce a disreputable dog into the family.
+
+A family council was held. On this depended the dog's fate, but he in no
+way heeded, being busily engaged in chewing the end of the child's
+dress.
+
+The affair was quickly ended. The father of the family, it appears, was
+in a particularly savage temper that evening, and when he perceived that
+it would amaze and anger everybody if such a dog were allowed to remain,
+he decided that it should be so. The child, crying softly, took his
+friend off to a retired part of the room to hobnob with him, while the
+father quelled a fierce rebellion of his wife. So it came to pass that
+the dog was a member of the household.
+
+He and the child were associated together at all times save when the
+child slept. The child became a guardian and a friend. If the large folk
+kicked the dog and threw things at him, the child made loud and violent
+objections. Once when the child had run, protesting loudly, with tears
+raining down his face and his arms outstretched, to protect his friend,
+he had been struck in the head with a very large saucepan from the hand
+of his father, enraged at some seeming lack of courtesy in the dog. Ever
+after, the family were careful how they threw things at the dog.
+Moreover, the latter grew very skilful in avoiding missiles and feet. In
+a small room containing a stove, a table, a bureau and some chairs, he
+would display strategic ability of a high order, dodging, feinting and
+scuttling about among the furniture. He could force three or four people
+armed with brooms, sticks and handfuls of coal, to use all their
+ingenuity to get in a blow. And even when they did, it was seldom that
+they could do him a serious injury or leave any imprint.
+
+But when the child was present these scenes did not occur. It came to be
+recognized that if the dog was molested, the child would burst into
+sobs, and as the child, when started, was very riotous and practically
+unquenchable, the dog had therein a safeguard.
+
+However, the child could not always be near. At night, when he was
+asleep, his dark-brown friend would raise from some black corner a wild,
+wailful cry, a song of infinite loneliness and despair, that would go
+shuddering and sobbing among the buildings of the block and cause people
+to swear. At these times the singer would often be chased all over the
+kitchen and hit with a great variety of articles.
+
+Sometimes, too, the child himself used to beat the dog, although it is
+not known that he ever had what truly could be called a just cause. The
+dog always accepted these thrashings with an air of admitted guilt. He
+was too much of a dog to try to look to be a martyr or to plot revenge.
+He received the blows with deep humility, and furthermore he forgave his
+friend the moment the child had finished, and was ready to caress the
+child's hand with his little red tongue.
+
+When misfortune came upon the child, and his troubles overwhelmed him,
+he would often crawl under the table and lay his small distressed head
+on the dog's back. The dog was ever sympathetic. It is not to be
+supposed that at such times he took occasion to refer to the unjust
+beatings his friend, when provoked, had administered to him.
+
+He did not achieve any notable degree of intimacy with the other members
+of the family. He had no confidence in them, and the fear that he would
+express at their casual approach often exasperated them exceedingly.
+They used to gain a certain satisfaction in underfeeding him, but
+finally his friend the child grew to watch the matter with some care,
+and when he forgot it, the dog was often successful in secret for
+himself.
+
+So the dog prospered. He developed a large bark, which came wondrously
+from such a small rug of a dog. He ceased to howl persistently at night.
+Sometimes, indeed, in his sleep, he would utter little yells, as from
+pain, but that occurred, no doubt, when in his dreams he encountered
+huge flaming dogs who threatened him direfully.
+
+His devotion to the child grew until it was a sublime thing. He wagged
+at his approach; he sank down in despair at his departure. He could
+detect the sound of the child's step among all the noises of the
+neighborhood. It was like a calling voice to him.
+
+The scene of their companionship was a kingdom governed by this terrible
+potentate, the child; but neither criticism nor rebellion ever lived for
+an instant in the heart of the one subject. Down in the mystic, hidden
+fields of his little dog-soul bloomed flowers of love and fidelity and
+perfect faith.
+
+The child was in the habit of going on many expeditions to observe
+strange things in the vicinity. On these occasions his friend usually
+jogged aimfully along behind. Perhaps, though, he went ahead. This
+necessitated his turning around every quarter-minute to make sure the
+child was coming. He was filled with a large idea of the importance of
+these journeys. He would carry himself with such an air! He was proud to
+be the retainer of so great a monarch.
+
+One day, however, the father of the family got quite exceptionally
+drunk. He came home and held carnival with the cooking utensils, the
+furniture and his wife. He was in the midst of this recreation when the
+child, followed by the dark-brown dog, entered the room. They were
+returning from their voyages.
+
+The child's practised eye instantly noted his father's state. He dived
+under the table, where experience had taught him was a rather safe
+place. The dog, lacking skill in such matters, was, of course, unaware
+of the true condition of affairs. He looked with interested eyes at his
+friend's sudden dive. He interpreted it to mean: Joyous gambol. He
+started to patter across the floor to join him. He was the picture of a
+little dark-brown dog en route to a friend.
+
+The head of the family saw him at this moment. He gave a huge howl of
+joy, and knocked the dog down with a heavy coffee-pot. The dog, yelling
+in supreme astonishment and fear, writhed to his feet and ran for cover.
+The man kicked out with a ponderous foot. It caused the dog to swerve as
+if caught in a tide. A second blow of the coffee-pot laid him upon the
+floor.
+
+Here the child, uttering loud cries, came valiantly forth like a knight.
+The father of the family paid no attention to these calls of the child,
+but advanced with glee upon the dog. Upon being knocked down twice in
+swift succession, the latter apparently gave up all hope of escape. He
+rolled over on his back and held his paws in a peculiar manner. At the
+same time with his eyes and his ears he offered up a small prayer.
+
+But the father was in a mood for having fun, and it occurred to him that
+it would be a fine thing to throw the dog out of the window. So he
+reached down and, grabbing the animal by a leg, lifted him, squirming,
+up. He swung him two or three times hilariously about his head, and then
+flung him with great accuracy through the window.
+
+The soaring dog created a surprise in the block. A woman watering plants
+in an opposite window gave an involuntary shout and dropped a flower-
+pot. A man in another window leaned perilously out to watch the flight
+of the dog. A woman who had been hanging out clothes in a yard began to
+caper wildly. Her mouth was filled with clothes-pins, but her arms gave
+vent to a sort of exclamation. In appearance she was like a gagged
+prisoner. Children ran whooping.
+
+The dark-brown body crashed in a heap on the roof of a shed five stories
+below. From thence it rolled to the pavement of an alleyway.
+
+The child in the room far above burst into a long, dirge-like cry, and
+toddled hastily out of the room. It took him a long time to reach the
+alley, because his size compelled him to go downstairs backward, one
+step at a time, and holding with both hands to the step above.
+
+When they came for him later, they found him seated by the body of his
+dark-brown friend.
+
+
+
+
+THE PACE OF YOUTH
+
+
+I
+
+Stimson stood in a corner and glowered. He was a fierce man and had
+indomitable whiskers, albeit he was very small.
+
+"That young tarrier," he whispered to himself. "He wants to quit makin'
+eyes at Lizzie. This is too much of a good thing. First thing you know,
+he'll get fired."
+
+His brow creased in a frown, he strode over to the huge open doors and
+looked at a sign. "Stimson's Mammoth Merry-Go-Round," it read, and the
+glory of it was great. Stimson stood and contemplated the sign. It was
+an enormous affair; the letters were as large as men. The glow of it,
+the grandeur of it was very apparent to Stimson. At the end of his
+contemplation, he shook his head thoughtfully, determinedly. "No, no,"
+he muttered. "This is too much of a good thing. First thing you know,
+he'll get fired."
+
+A soft booming sound of surf, mingled with the cries of bathers, came
+from the beach. There was a vista of sand and sky and sea that drew to a
+mystic point far away in the northward. In the mighty angle, a girl in a
+red dress was crawling slowly like some kind of a spider on the fabric
+of nature. A few flags hung lazily above where the bathhouses were
+marshalled in compact squares. Upon the edge of the sea stood a ship
+with its shadowy sails painted dimly upon the sky, and high overhead in
+the still, sun-shot air a great hawk swung and drifted slowly.
+
+Within the Merry-Go-Round there was a whirling circle of ornamental
+lions, giraffes, camels, ponies, goats, glittering with varnish and
+metal that caught swift reflections from windows high above them. With
+stiff wooden legs, they swept on in a never-ending race, while a great
+orchestrion clamored in wild speed. The summer sunlight sprinkled its
+gold upon the garnet canopies carried by the tireless racers and upon
+all the devices of decoration that made Stimson's machine magnificent
+and famous. A host of laughing children bestrode the animals, bending
+forward like charging cavalrymen, and shaking reins and whooping in
+glee. At intervals they leaned out perilously to clutch at iron rings
+that were tendered to them by a long wooden arm. At the intense moment
+before the swift grab for the rings one could see their little nervous
+bodies quiver with eagerness; the laughter rang shrill and excited. Down
+in the long rows of benches, crowds of people sat watching the game,
+while occasionally a father might arise and go near to shout
+encouragement, cautionary commands, or applause at his flying offspring.
+Frequently mothers called out: "Be careful, Georgie!" The orchestrion
+bellowed and thundered on its platform, filling the ears with its long
+monotonous song. Over in a corner, a man in a white apron and behind a
+counter roared above the tumult: "Popcorn! Popcorn!"
+
+A young man stood upon a small, raised platform, erected in a manner of
+a pulpit, and just without the line of the circling figures. It was his
+duty to manipulate the wooden arm and affix the rings. When all were
+gone into the hands of the triumphant children, he held forth a basket,
+into which they returned all save the coveted brass one, which meant
+another ride free and made the holder very illustrious. The young man
+stood all day upon his narrow platform, affixing rings or holding forth
+the basket. He was a sort of general squire in these lists of childhood.
+He was very busy.
+
+And yet Stimson, the astute, had noticed that the young man frequently
+found time to twist about on his platform and smile at a girl who shyly
+sold tickets behind a silvered netting. This, indeed, was the great
+reason of Stimson's glowering. The young man upon the raised platform
+had no manner of license to smile at the girl behind the silvered
+netting. It was a most gigantic insolence. Stimson was amazed at it. "By
+Jiminy," he said to himself again, "that fellow is smiling at my
+daughter." Even in this tone of great wrath it could be discerned that
+Stimson was filled with wonder that any youth should dare smile at the
+daughter in the presence of the august father.
+
+Often the dark-eyed girl peered between the shining wires, and, upon
+being detected by the young man, she usually turned her head quickly to
+prove to him that she was not interested. At other times, however, her
+eyes seemed filled with a tender fear lest he should fall from that
+exceedingly dangerous platform. As for the young man, it was plain that
+these glances filled him with valor, and he stood carelessly upon his
+perch, as if he deemed it of no consequence that he might fall from it.
+In all the complexities of his daily life and duties he found
+opportunity to gaze ardently at the vision behind the netting.
+
+This silent courtship was conducted over the heads of the crowd who
+thronged about the bright machine. The swift eloquent glances of the
+young man went noiselessly and unseen with their message. There had
+finally become established between the two in this manner a subtle
+understanding and companionship. They communicated accurately all that
+they felt. The boy told his love, his reverence, his hope in the changes
+of the future. The girl told him that she loved him, and she did not
+love him, that she did not know if she loved him. Sometimes a little
+sign, saying "cashier" in gold letters, and hanging upon the silvered
+netting, got directly in range and interfered with the tender message.
+
+The love affair had not continued without anger, unhappiness, despair.
+The girl had once smiled brightly upon a youth who came to buy some
+tickets for his little sister, and the young man upon the platform,
+observing this smile, had been filled with gloomy rage. He stood like a
+dark statue of vengeance upon his pedestal and thrust out the basket to
+the children with a gesture that was full of scorn for their hollow
+happiness, for their insecure and temporary joy. For five hours he did
+not once look at the girl when she was looking at him. He was going to
+crush her with his indifference; he was going to demonstrate that he had
+never been serious. However, when he narrowly observed her in secret he
+discovered that she seemed more blythe than was usual with her. When he
+found that his apparent indifference had not crushed her he suffered
+greatly. She did not love him, he concluded. If she had loved him she
+would have been crushed. For two days he lived a miserable existence
+upon his high perch. He consoled himself by thinking of how unhappy he
+was, and by swift, furtive glances at the loved face. At any rate he was
+in her presence, and he could get a good view from his perch when there
+was no interference by the little sign: "Cashier."
+
+But suddenly, swiftly, these clouds vanished, and under the imperial
+blue sky of the restored confidence they dwelt in peace, a peace that
+was satisfaction, a peace that, like a babe, put its trust in the
+treachery of the future. This confidence endured until the next day,
+when she, for an unknown cause, suddenly refused to look at him.
+Mechanically he continued his task, his brain dazed, a tortured victim
+of doubt, fear, suspicion. With his eyes he supplicated her to telegraph
+an explanation. She replied with a stony glance that froze his blood.
+There was a great difference in their respective reasons for becoming
+angry. His were always foolish, but apparent, plain as the moon. Hers
+were subtle, feminine, as incomprehensible as the stars, as mysterious
+as the shadows at night.
+
+They fell and soared and soared and fell in this manner until they knew
+that to live without each other would be a wandering in deserts. They
+had grown so intent upon the uncertainties, the variations, the
+guessings of their affair that the world had become but a huge
+immaterial background. In time of peace their smiles were soft and
+prayerful, caresses confided to the air. In time of war, their youthful
+hearts, capable of profound agony, were wrung by the intricate emotions
+of doubt. They were the victims of the dread angel of affectionate
+speculation that forces the brain endlessly on roads that lead nowhere.
+
+At night, the problem of whether she loved him confronted the young man
+like a spectre, looming as high as a hill and telling him not to delude
+himself. Upon the following day, this battle of the night displayed
+itself in the renewed fervor of his glances and in their increased
+number. Whenever he thought he could detect that she too was suffering,
+he felt a thrill of joy.
+
+But there came a time when the young man looked back upon these
+contortions with contempt. He believed then that he had imagined his
+pain. This came about when the redoubtable Stimson marched forward to
+participate.
+
+"This has got to stop," Stimson had said to himself, as he stood and
+watched them. They had grown careless of the light world that clattered
+about them; they were become so engrossed in their personal drama that
+the language of their eyes was almost as obvious as gestures. And
+Stimson, through his keenness, his wonderful, infallible penetration,
+suddenly came into possession of these obvious facts. "Well, of all the
+nerves," he said, regarding with a new interest the young man upon the
+perch.
+
+He was a resolute man. He never hesitated to grapple with a crisis. He
+decided to overturn everything at once, for, although small, he was very
+fierce and impetuous. He resolved to crush this dreaming.
+
+He strode over to the silvered netting. "Say, you want to quit your
+everlasting grinning at that idiot," he said, grimly.
+
+The girl cast down her eyes and made a little heap of quarters into a
+stack. She was unable to withstand the terrible scrutiny of her small
+and fierce father.
+
+Stimson turned from his daughter and went to a spot beneath the
+platform. He fixed his eyes upon the young man and said--
+
+"I've been speakin' to Lizzie. You better attend strictly to your own
+business or there'll be a new man here next week." It was as if he had
+blazed away with a shotgun. The young man reeled upon his perch. At last
+he in a measure regained his composure and managed to stammer: "A--all
+right, sir." He knew that denials would be futile with the terrible
+Stimson. He agitatedly began to rattle the rings in the basket, and
+pretend that he was obliged to count them or inspect them in some way.
+He, too, was unable to face the great Stimson.
+
+For a moment, Stimson stood in fine satisfaction and gloated over the
+effect of his threat.
+
+"I've fixed them," he said complacently, and went out to smoke a cigar
+and revel in himself. Through his mind went the proud reflection that
+people who came in contact with his granite will usually ended in quick
+and abject submission.
+
+
+II
+
+One evening, a week after Stimson had indulged in the proud reflection
+that people who came in contact with his granite will usually ended in
+quick and abject submission, a young feminine friend of the girl behind
+the silvered netting came to her there and asked her to walk on the
+beach after "Stimson's Mammoth Merry-Go-Round" was closed for the night.
+The girl assented with a nod.
+
+The young man upon the perch holding the rings saw this nod and judged
+its meaning. Into his mind came an idea of defeating the watchfulness of
+the redoubtable Stimson. When the Merry-Go-Round was closed and the two
+girls started for the beach, he wandered off aimlessly in another
+direction, but he kept them in view, and as soon as he was assured that
+he had escaped the vigilance of Stimson, he followed them.
+
+The electric lights on the beach made a broad band of tremoring light,
+extending parallel to the sea, and upon the wide walk there slowly
+paraded a great crowd, intermingling, intertwining, sometimes colliding.
+In the darkness stretched the vast purple expanse of the ocean, and the
+deep indigo sky above was peopled with yellow stars. Occasionally out
+upon the water a whirling mass of froth suddenly flashed into view, like
+a great ghostly robe appearing, and then vanished, leaving the sea in
+its darkness, whence came those bass tones of the water's unknown
+emotion. A wind, cool, reminiscent of the wave wastes, made the women
+hold their wraps about their throats, and caused the men to grip the
+rims of their straw hats. It carried the noise of the band in the
+pavilion in gusts. Sometimes people unable to hear the music glanced up
+at the pavilion and were reassured upon beholding the distant leader
+still gesticulating and bobbing, and the other members of the band with
+their lips glued to their instruments. High in the sky soared an
+unassuming moon, faintly silver.
+
+For a time the young man was afraid to approach the two girls; he
+followed them at a distance and called himself a coward. At last,
+however, he saw them stop on the outer edge of the crowd and stand
+silently listening to the voices of the sea. When he came to where they
+stood, he was trembling in his agitation. They had not seen him.
+
+"Lizzie," he began. "I----"
+
+The girl wheeled instantly and put her hand to her throat.
+
+"Oh, Frank, how you frightened me," she said--inevitably.
+
+"Well, you know, I--I----" he stuttered.
+
+But the other girl was one of those beings who are born to attend at
+tragedies. She had for love a reverence, an admiration that was greater
+the more that she contemplated the fact that she knew nothing of it.
+This couple, with their emotions, awed her and made her humbly wish that
+she might be destined to be of some service to them. She was very
+homely.
+
+When the young man faltered before them, she, in her sympathy, actually
+over-estimated the crisis, and felt that he might fall dying at their
+feet. Shyly, but with courage, she marched to the rescue.
+
+"Won't you come and walk on the beach with us?" she said.
+
+The young man gave her a glance of deep gratitude which was not without
+the patronage which a man in his condition naturally feels for one who
+pities it. The three walked on.
+
+Finally, the being who was born to attend at this tragedy said that she
+wished to sit down and gaze at the sea, alone.
+
+They politely urged her to walk on with them, but she was obstinate. She
+wished to gaze at the sea, alone. The young man swore to himself that he
+would be her friend until he died.
+
+And so the two young lovers went on without her. They turned once to
+look at her.
+
+"Jennie's awful nice," said the girl.
+
+"You bet she is," replied the young man, ardently.
+
+They were silent for a little time.
+
+At last the girl said--
+
+"You were angry at me yesterday."
+
+"No, I wasn't."
+
+"Yes, you were, too. You wouldn't look at me once all day."
+
+"No, I wasn't angry. I was only putting on."
+
+Though she had, of course, known it, this confession seemed to make her
+very indignant. She flashed a resentful glance at him.
+
+"Oh, you were, indeed?" she said with a great air.
+
+For a few minutes she was so haughty with him that he loved her to
+madness. And directly this poem, which stuck at his lips, came forth
+lamely in fragments.
+
+When they walked back toward the other girl and saw the patience of her
+attitude, their hearts swelled in a patronizing and secondary tenderness
+for her.
+
+They were very happy. If they had been miserable they would have charged
+this fairy scene of the night with a criminal heartlessness; but as they
+were joyous, they vaguely wondered how the purple sea, the yellow stars,
+the changing crowds under the electric lights could be so phlegmatic and
+stolid.
+
+They walked home by the lakeside way, and out upon the water those gay
+paper lanterns, flashing, fleeting, and careering, sang to them, sang a
+chorus of red and violet, and green and gold; a song of mystic bands of
+the future.
+
+One day, when business paused during a dull sultry afternoon, Stimson
+went up town. Upon his return, he found that the popcorn man, from his
+stand over in a corner, was keeping an eye upon the cashier's cage, and
+that nobody at all was attending to the wooden arm and the iron rings.
+He strode forward like a sergeant of grenadiers.
+
+"Where in thunder is Lizzie?" he demanded, a cloud of rage in his eyes.
+
+The popcorn man, although associated long with Stimson, had never got
+over being dazed.
+
+"They've--they've--gone round to th'--th'--house," he said with
+difficulty, as if he had just been stunned.
+
+"Whose house?" snapped Stimson.
+
+"Your--your house, I s'pose," said the popcorn man.
+
+Stimson marched round to his home. Kingly denunciations surged, already
+formulated, to the tip of his tongue, and he bided the moment when his
+anger could fall upon the heads of that pair of children. He found his
+wife convulsive and in tears.
+
+"Where's Lizzie?"
+
+And then she burst forth--"Oh--John--John--they've run away, I know they
+have. They drove by here not three minutes ago. They must have done it
+on purpose to bid me good-bye, for Lizzie waved her hand sadlike; and
+then, before I could get out to ask where they were going or what, Frank
+whipped up the horse."
+
+Stimson gave vent to a dreadful roar.
+
+"Get my revolver--get a hack--get my revolver, do you hear--what the
+devil--" His voice became incoherent.
+
+He had always ordered his wife about as if she were a battalion of
+infantry, and despite her misery, the training of years forced her to
+spring mechanically to obey; but suddenly she turned to him with a
+shrill appeal.
+
+"Oh, John--not--the--revolver."
+
+"Confound it, let go of me!" he roared again, and shook her from him.
+
+He ran hatless upon the street. There were a multitude of hacks at the
+summer resort, but it was ages to him before he could find one. Then he
+charged it like a bull.
+
+"Uptown!" he yelled, as he tumbled into the rear seat.
+
+The hackman thought of severed arteries. His galloping horse distanced a
+large number of citizens who had been running to find what caused such
+contortions by the little hatless man.
+
+It chanced as the bouncing hack went along near the lake, Stimson gazed
+across the calm grey expanse and recognized a color in a bonnet and a
+pose of a head. A buggy was traveling along a highway that led to
+Sorington. Stimson bellowed--"There--there--there they are--in that
+buggy."
+
+The hackman became inspired with the full knowledge of the situation. He
+struck a delirious blow with the whip. His mouth expanded in a grin of
+excitement and joy. It came to pass that this old vehicle, with its
+drowsy horse and its dusty-eyed and tranquil driver, seemed suddenly to
+awaken, to become animated and fleet. The horse ceased to ruminate on
+his state, his air of reflection vanished. He became intent upon his
+aged legs and spread them in quaint and ridiculous devices for speed.
+The driver, his eyes shining, sat critically in his seat. He watched
+each motion of this rattling machine down before him. He resembled an
+engineer. He used the whip with judgment and deliberation as the
+engineer would have used coal or oil. The horse clacked swiftly upon the
+macadam, the wheels hummed, the body of the vehicle wheezed and groaned.
+
+Stimson, in the rear seat, was erect in that impassive attitude that
+comes sometimes to the furious man when he is obliged to leave the
+battle to others. Frequently, however, the tempest in his breast came to
+his face and he howled--
+
+"Go it--go it--you're gaining; pound 'im! Thump the life out of 'im; hit
+'im hard, you fool!" His hand grasped the rod that supported the
+carriage top, and it was clenched so that the nails were faintly blue.
+
+Ahead, that other carriage had been flying with speed, as from
+realization of the menace in the rear. It bowled away rapidly, drawn by
+the eager spirit of a young and modern horse. Stimson could see the
+buggy-top bobbing, bobbing. That little pane, like an eye, was a
+derision to him. Once he leaned forward and bawled angry sentences. He
+began to feel impotent; his whole expedition was a tottering of an old
+man upon a trail of birds. A sense of age made him choke again with
+wrath. That other vehicle, that was youth, with youth's pace; it was
+swift-flying with the hope of dreams. He began to comprehend those two
+children ahead of him, and he knew a sudden and strange awe, because he
+understood the power of their young blood, the power to fly strongly
+into the future and feel and hope again, even at that time when his
+bones must be laid in the earth. The dust rose easily from the hot road
+and stifled the nostrils of Stimson.
+
+The highway vanished far away in a point with a suggestion of
+intolerable length. The other vehicle was becoming so small that Stimson
+could no longer see the derisive eye.
+
+At last the hackman drew rein to his horse and turned to look at
+Stimson.
+
+"No use, I guess," he said.
+
+Stimson made a gesture of acquiescence, rage, despair. As the hackman
+turned his dripping horse about, Stimson sank back with the astonishment
+and grief of a man who has been defied by the universe. He had been in a
+great perspiration, and now his bald head felt cool and uncomfortable.
+He put up his hand with a sudden recollection that he had forgotten his
+hat.
+
+At last he made a gesture. It meant that at any rate he was not
+responsible.
+
+
+
+
+A TENT IN AGONY
+
+
+A SULLIVAN COUNTY TALE
+
+Four men once came to a wet place in the roadless forest to fish. They
+pitched their tent fair upon the brow of a pine-clothed ridge of riven
+rocks whence a bowlder could be made to crash through the brush and
+whirl past the trees to the lake below. On fragrant hemlock boughs they
+slept the sleep of unsuccessful fishermen, for upon the lake alternately
+the sun made them lazy and the rain made them wet. Finally they ate the
+last bit of bacon and smoked and burned the last fearful and wonderful
+hoecake.
+
+Immediately a little man volunteered to stay and hold the camp while the
+remaining three should go the Sullivan county miles to a farmhouse for
+supplies. They gazed at him dismally. "There's only one of you--the
+devil make a twin," they said in parting malediction, and disappeared
+down the hill in the known direction of a distant cabin. When it came
+night and the hemlocks began to sob they had not returned. The little
+man sat close to his companion, the campfire, and encouraged it with
+logs. He puffed fiercely at a heavy built brier, and regarded a thousand
+shadows which were about to assault him. Suddenly he heard the approach
+of the unknown, crackling the twigs and rustling the dead leaves. The
+little man arose slowly to his feet, his clothes refused to fit his
+back, his pipe dropped from his mouth, his knees smote each other.
+"Hah!" he bellowed hoarsely in menace. A growl replied and a bear paced
+into the light of the fire. The little man supported himself upon a
+sapling and regarded his visitor.
+
+The bear was evidently a veteran and a fighter, for the black of his
+coat had become tawny with age. There was confidence in his gait and
+arrogance in his small, twinkling eye. He rolled back his lips and
+disclosed his white teeth. The fire magnified the red of his mouth. The
+little man had never before confronted the terrible and he could not
+wrest it from his breast. "Hah!" he roared. The bear interpreted this as
+the challenge of a gladiator. He approached warily. As he came near, the
+boots of fear were suddenly upon the little man's feet. He cried out and
+then darted around the campfire. "Ho!" said the bear to himself, "this
+thing won't fight--it runs. Well, suppose I catch it." So upon his
+features there fixed the animal look of going--somewhere. He started
+intensely around the campfire. The little man shrieked and ran
+furiously. Twice around they went.
+
+The hand of heaven sometimes falls heavily upon the righteous. The bear
+gained.
+
+In desperation the little man flew into the tent. The bear stopped and
+sniffed at the entrance. He scented the scent of many men. Finally he
+ventured in.
+
+The little man crouched in a distant corner. The bear advanced,
+creeping, his blood burning, his hair erect, his jowls dripping. The
+little man yelled and rustled clumsily under the flap at the end of the
+tent. The bear snarled awfully and made a jump and a grab at his
+disappearing game. The little man, now without the tent, felt a
+tremendous paw grab his coat tails. He squirmed and wriggled out of his
+coat like a schoolboy in the hands of an avenger. The bear bowled
+triumphantly and jerked the coat into the tent and took two bites, a
+punch and a hug before he, discovered his man was not in it. Then he
+grew not very angry, for a bear on a spree is not a black-haired pirate.
+He is merely a hoodlum. He lay down on his back, took the coat on his
+four paws and began to play uproariously with it. The most appalling,
+blood-curdling whoops and yells came to where the little man was crying
+in a treetop and froze his blood. He moaned a little speech meant for a
+prayer and clung convulsively to the bending branches. He gazed with
+tearful wistfulness at where his comrade, the campfire, was giving dying
+flickers and crackles. Finally, there was a roar from the tent which
+eclipsed all roars; a snarl which it seemed would shake the stolid
+silence of the mountain and cause it to shrug its granite shoulders. The
+little man quaked and shrivelled to a grip and a pair of eyes. In the
+glow of the embers he saw the white tent quiver and fall with a crash.
+The bear's merry play had disturbed the center pole and brought a chaos
+of canvas upon his head.
+
+Now the little man became the witness of a mighty scene. The tent began
+to flounder. It took flopping strides in the direction of the lake.
+Marvellous sounds came from within--rips and tears, and great groans and
+pants. The little man went into giggling hysterics.
+
+The entangled monster failed to extricate himself before he had walloped
+the tent frenziedly to the edge of the mountain. So it came to pass that
+three men, clambering up the hill with bundles and baskets, saw their
+tent approaching. It seemed to them like a white-robed phantom pursued
+by hornets. Its moans riffled the hemlock twigs.
+
+The three men dropped their bundles and scurried to one side, their eyes
+gleaming with fear. The canvas avalanche swept past them. They leaned,
+faint and dumb, against trees and listened, their blood stagnant. Below
+them it struck the base of a great pine tree, where it writhed and
+struggled. The three watched its convolutions a moment and then started
+terrifically for the top of the hill. As they disappeared, the bear cut
+loose with a mighty effort. He cast one dishevelled and agonized look at
+the white thing, and then started wildly for the inner recesses of the
+forest.
+
+The three fear-stricken individuals ran to the rebuilt fire. The little
+man reposed by it calmly smoking. They sprang at him and overwhelmed him
+with interrogations. He contemplated darkness and took a long, pompous
+puff. "There's only one of me--and the devil made a twin," he said.
+
+
+
+
+FOUR MEN IN A CAVE
+
+
+LIKEWISE FOUR QUEENS, AND A SULLIVAN COUNTY HERMIT
+
+The moon rested for a moment on the top of a tall pine on a hill.
+
+The little man was standing in front of the campfire making orations to
+his companions.
+
+"We can tell a great tale when we get back to the city if we investigate
+this thing," said he, in conclusion.
+
+They were won.
+
+The little man was determined to explore a cave, because its black mouth
+had gaped at him. The four men took a lighted pine-knot and clambered
+over boulders down a hill. In a thicket on the mountainside lay a little
+tilted hole. At its side they halted.
+
+"Well?" said the little man.
+
+They fought for last place and the little man was overwhelmed. He tried
+to struggle from under by crying that if the fat, pudgy man came after,
+he would be corked. But he finally administered a cursing over his
+shoulder and crawled into the hole. His companions gingerly followed.
+
+A passage, the floor of damp clay and pebbles, the walls slimy, green-
+mossed, and dripping, sloped downward. In the cave atmosphere the
+torches became studies in red blaze and black smoke.
+
+"Ho!" cried the little man, stifled and bedraggled, "let's go back." His
+companions were not brave. They were last. The next one to the little
+man pushed him on, so the little man said sulphurous words and
+cautiously continued his crawl.
+
+Things that hung seemed to be on the wet, uneven ceiling, ready to drop
+upon the men's bare necks. Under their hands the clammy floor seemed
+alive and writhing. When the little man endeavored to stand erect the
+ceiling forced him down. Knobs and points came out and punched him. His
+clothes were wet and mud-covered, and his eyes, nearly blinded by smoke,
+tried to pierce the darkness always before his torch.
+
+"Oh, I say, you fellows, let's go back," cried he. At that moment he
+caught the gleam of trembling light in the blurred shadows before him.
+
+"Ho!" he said, "here's another way out."
+
+The passage turned abruptly. The little man put one hand around the
+corner, but it touched nothing. He investigated and discovered that the
+little corridor took a sudden dip down a hill. At the bottom shone a
+yellow light.
+
+The little man wriggled painfully about, and descended feet in advance.
+The others followed his plan. All picked their way with anxious care.
+The traitorous rocks rolled from beneath the little man's feet and
+roared thunderously below him, lesser stone loosened by the men above
+him, hit him on the back. He gained seemingly firm foothold, and,
+turning halfway about, swore redly at his companions for dolts and
+careless fools. The pudgy man sat, puffing and perspiring, high in the
+rear of the procession. The fumes and smoke from four pine-knots were in
+his blood. Cinders and sparks lay thick in his eyes and hair. The pause
+of the little man angered him.
+
+"Go on, you fool!" he shouted. "Poor, painted man, you are afraid."
+
+"Ho!" said the little man. "Come down here and go on yourself,
+imbecile!"
+
+The pudgy man vibrated with passion. He leaned downward. "Idiot--"
+
+He was interrupted by one of his feet which flew out and crashed into
+the man in front of and below. It is not well to quarrel upon a slippery
+incline, when the unknown is below. The fat man, having lost the support
+of one pillar-like foot, lurched forward. His body smote the next man,
+who hurtled into the next man. Then they all fell upon the cursing
+little man.
+
+They slid in a body down over the slippery, slimy floor of the passage.
+The stone avenue must have wibble-wobbled with the rush of this ball of
+tangled men and strangled cries. The torches went out with the combined
+assault upon the little man. The adventurers whirled to the unknown in
+darkness. The little man felt that he was pitching to death, but even in
+his convolutions he bit and scratched at his companions, for he was
+satisfied that it was their fault. The swirling mass went some twenty
+feet, and lit upon a level, dry place in a strong, yellow light of
+candles. It dissolved and became eyes.
+
+The four men lay in a heap upon the floor of a grey chamber. A small
+fire smoldered in the corner, the smoke disappearing in a crack. In
+another corner was a bed of faded hemlock boughs and two blankets.
+Cooking utensils and clothes lay about, with boxes and a barrel.
+
+Of these things the four men took small cognisance. The pudgy man did
+not curse the little man, nor did the little man swear, in the abstract.
+Eight widened eyes were fixed upon the center of the room of rocks.
+
+A great, gray stone, cut squarely, like an altar, sat in the middle of
+the floor. Over it burned three candles, in swaying tin cups hung from
+the ceiling. Before it, with what seemed to be a small volume clasped in
+his yellow fingers, stood a man. He was an infinitely sallow person in
+the brown-checked shirt of the ploughs and cows. The rest of his apparel
+was boots. A long grey beard dangled from his chin. He fixed glinting,
+fiery eyes upon the heap of men, and remained motionless. Fascinated,
+their tongues cleaving, their blood cold, they arose to their feet. The
+gleaming glance of the recluse swept slowly over the group until it
+found the face of the little man. There it stayed and burned.
+
+The little man shrivelled and crumpled as the dried leaf under the
+glass.
+
+Finally, the recluse slowly, deeply spoke. It was a true voice from a
+cave, cold, solemn, and damp.
+
+"It's your ante," he said.
+
+"What?" said the little man.
+
+The hermit tilted his beard and laughed a laugh that was either the
+chatter of a banshee in a storm or the rattle of pebbles in a tin box.
+His visitors' flesh seemed ready to drop from their bones.
+
+They huddled together and cast fearful eyes over their shoulders. They
+whispered.
+
+"A vampire!" said one.
+
+"A ghoul!" said another.
+
+"A Druid before the sacrifice," murmured another.
+
+"The shade of an Aztec witch doctor," said the little man.
+
+As they looked, the inscrutable face underwent a change. It became a
+livid background for his eyes, which blazed at the little man like
+impassioned carbuncles. His voice arose to a howl of ferocity. "It's
+your ante!" With a panther-like motion he drew a long, thin knife and
+advanced, stooping. Two cadaverous hounds came from nowhere, and,
+scowling and growling, made desperate feints at the little man's legs.
+His quaking companions pushed him forward.
+
+Tremblingly he put his hand to his pocket.
+
+"How much?" he said, with a shivering look at the knife that glittered.
+
+The carbuncles faded.
+
+"Three dollars," said the hermit, in sepulchral tones which rang against
+the walls and among the passages, awakening long-dead spirits with
+voices. The shaking little man took a roll of bills from a pocket and
+placed "three ones" upon the altar-like stone. The recluse looked at the
+little volume with reverence in his eyes. It was a pack of playing
+cards.
+
+Under the three swinging candles, upon the altar-like stone, the grey
+beard and the agonized little man played at poker. The three other men
+crouched in a corner, and stared with eyes that gleamed with terror.
+Before them sat the cadaverous hounds licking their red lips. The
+candles burned low, and began to flicker. The fire in the corner
+expired.
+
+Finally, the game came to a point where the little man laid down his
+hand and quavered: "I can't call you this time, sir. I'm dead broke."
+
+"What?" shrieked the recluse. "Not call me! Villain Dastard! Cur! I have
+four queens, miscreant." His voice grew so mighty that it could not fit
+his throat. He choked wrestling with his lungs for a moment. Then the
+power of his body was concentrated in a word: "Go!"
+
+He pointed a quivering, yellow finger at a wide crack in the rock. The
+little man threw himself at it with a howl. His erstwhile frozen
+companions felt their blood throb again. With great bounds they plunged
+after the little man. A minute of scrambling, falling, and pushing
+brought them to open air. They climbed the distance to their camp in
+furious springs.
+
+The sky in the east was a lurid yellow. In the west the footprints of
+departing night lay on the pine trees. In front of their replenished
+camp fire sat John Willerkins, the guide.
+
+"Hello!" he shouted at their approach. "Be you fellers ready to go deer
+huntin'?"
+
+Without replying, they stopped and debated among themselves in whispers.
+
+Finally, the pudgy man came forward.
+
+"John," he inquired, "do you know anything peculiar about this cave
+below here?"
+
+"Yes," said Willerkins at once; "Tom Gardner."
+
+"What?" said the pudgy man.
+
+"Tom Gardner."
+
+"How's that?"
+
+"Well, you see," said Willerkins slowly, as he took dignified pulls at
+his pipe, "Tom Gardner was once a fambly man, who lived in these here
+parts on a nice leetle farm. He uster go away to the city orften, and
+one time he got a-gamblin' in one of them there dens. He went ter the
+dickens right quick then. At last he kum home one time and tol' his
+folks he had up and sold the farm and all he had in the worl'. His
+leetle wife she died then. Tom he went crazy, and soon after--"
+
+The narrative was interrupted by the little man, who became possessed of
+devils.
+
+"I wouldn't give a cuss if he had left me 'nough money to get home on
+the doggoned, grey-haired red pirate," he shrilled, in a seething
+sentence. The pudgy man gazed at the little man calmly and sneeringly.
+
+"Oh, well," he said, "we can tell a great tale when we get back to the
+city after having investigated this thing."
+
+"Go to the devil," replied the little man.
+
+
+
+
+THE MESMERIC MOUNTAIN
+
+
+A TALE OF SULLIVAN COUNTY
+
+On the brow of a pine-plumed hillock there sat a little man with his
+back against a tree. A venerable pipe hung from his mouth, and smoke-
+wreaths curled slowly skyward, he was muttering to himself with his eyes
+fixed on an irregular black opening in the green wall of forest at the
+foot of the hill. Two vague wagon ruts led into the shadows. The little
+man took his pipe in his hands and addressed the listening pines.
+
+"I wonder what the devil it leads to," said he.
+
+A grey, fat rabbit came lazily from a thicket and sat in the opening.
+Softly stroking his stomach with his paw, he looked at the little man in
+a thoughtful manner. The little man threw a stone, and the rabbit
+blinked and ran through an opening. Green, shadowy portals seemed to
+close behind him.
+
+The little man started. "He's gone down that roadway," he said, with
+ecstatic mystery to the pines. He sat a long time and contemplated the
+door to the forest. Finally, he arose, and awakening his limbs, started
+away. But he stopped and looked back.
+
+"I can't imagine what it leads to," muttered he. He trudged over the
+brown mats of pine needles, to where, in a fringe of laurel, a tent was
+pitched, and merry flames caroused about some logs. A pudgy man was
+fuming over a collection of tin dishes. He came forward and waved a
+plate furiously in the little man's face.
+
+"I've washed the dishes for three days. What do you think I am--"
+
+He ended a red oration with a roar: "Damned if I do it any more."
+
+The little man gazed dim-eyed away. "I've been wonderin' what it leads
+to."
+
+"What?"
+
+"That road out yonder. I've been wonderin' what it leads to. Maybe, some
+discovery or something," said the little man.
+
+The pudgy man laughed. "You're an idiot. It leads to ol' Jim Boyd's over
+on the Lumberland Pike."
+
+"Ho!" said the little man, "I don't believe that."
+
+The pudgy man swore. "Fool, what does it lead to, then?"
+
+"I don't know just what, but I'm sure it leads to something great or
+something. It looks like it."
+
+While the pudgy man was cursing, two more men came from obscurity with
+fish dangling from birch twigs. The pudgy man made an obviously
+herculean struggle and a meal was prepared. As he was drinking his cup
+of coffee, he suddenly spilled it and swore. The little man was
+wandering off.
+
+"He's gone to look at that hole," cried the pudgy man.
+
+The little man went to the edge of the pine-plumed hillock, and, sitting
+down, began to make smoke and regard the door to the forest. There was
+stillness for an hour. Compact clouds hung unstirred in the sky. The
+pines stood motionless, and pondering.
+
+Suddenly the little man slapped his knees and bit his tongue. He stood
+up and determinedly filled his pipe, rolling his eye over the bowl to
+the doorway. Keeping his eyes fixed he slid dangerously to the foot of
+the hillock and walked down the wagon ruts. A moment later he passed
+from the noise of the sunshine to the gloom of the woods.
+
+The green portals closed, shutting out live things. The little man
+trudged on alone.
+
+Tall tangled grass grew in the roadway, and the trees bended obstructing
+branches. The little man followed on over pine-clothed ridges and down
+through water-soaked swales. His shoes were cut by rocks of the
+mountains, and he sank ankle-deep in mud and moss of swamps. A curve
+just ahead lured him miles.
+
+Finally, as he wended the side of a ridge, the road disappeared from
+beneath his feet. He battled with hordes of ignorant bushes on his way
+to knolls and solitary trees which invited him. Once he came to a tall,
+bearded pine. He climbed it, and perceived in the distance a peak. He
+uttered an ejaculation and fell out.
+
+He scrambled to his feet, and said: "That's Jones's Mountain, I guess.
+It's about six miles from our camp as the crow flies."
+
+He changed his course away from the mountain, and attacked the bushes
+again. He climbed over great logs, golden-brown in decay, and was
+opposed by thickets of dark-green laurel. A brook slid through the ooze
+of a swamp, cedars and hemlocks hung their spray to the edges of pools.
+
+The little man began to stagger in his walk. After a time he stopped and
+mopped his brow.
+
+"My legs are about to shrivel up and drop off," he said.... "Still if I
+keep on in this direction, I am safe to strike the Lumberland Pike
+before sundown."
+
+He dived at a clump of tag-alders, and emerging, confronted Jones's
+Mountain.
+
+The wanderer sat down in a clear space and fixed his eyes on the summit.
+His mouth opened widely, and his body swayed at times. The little man
+and the peak stared in silence.
+
+A lazy lake lay asleep near the foot of the mountain. In its bed of
+water-grass some frogs leered at the sky and crooned. The sun sank in
+red silence, and the shadows of the pines grew formidable. The expectant
+hush of evening, as if some thing were going to sing a hymn, fell upon
+the peak and the little man.
+
+A leaping pickerel off on the water created a silver circle that was
+lost in black shadows. The little man shook himself and started to his
+feet, crying: "For the love of Mike, there's eyes in this mountain! I
+feel 'em! Eyes!"
+
+He fell on his face.
+
+When he looked again, he immediately sprang erect and ran.
+
+"It's comin'!"
+
+The mountain was approaching.
+
+The little man scurried, sobbing through the thick growth. He felt his
+brain turning to water. He vanquished brambles with mighty bounds.
+
+But after a time he came again to the foot of the mountain.
+
+"God!" he howled, "it's been follerin' me." He grovelled.
+
+Casting his eyes upward made circles swirl in his blood.
+
+"I'm shackled I guess," he moaned. As he felt the heel of the mountain
+about to crush his head, he sprang again to his feet. He grasped a
+handful of small stones and hurled them.
+
+"Damn you," he shrieked loudly. The pebbles rang against the face of the
+mountain.
+
+The little man then made an attack. He climbed with hands and feet
+wildly. Brambles forced him back and stones slid from beneath his feet.
+The peak swayed and tottered, and was ever about to smite with a granite
+arm. The summit was a blaze of red wrath.
+
+But the little man at last reached the top. Immediately he swaggered
+with valor to the edge of the cliff. His hands were scornfully in his
+pockets.
+
+He gazed at the western horizon, edged sharply against a yellow sky.
+"Ho!" he said. "There's Boyd's house and the Lumberland Pike."
+
+The mountain under his feet was motionless.
+
+
+
+
+THE SNAKE
+
+
+Where the path wended across the ridge, the bushes of huckleberry and
+sweet fern swarmed at it in two curling waves until it was a mere
+winding line traced through a tangle. There was no interference by
+clouds, and as the rays of the sun fell full upon the ridge, they called
+into voice innumerable insects which chanted the heat of the summer day
+in steady, throbbing, unending chorus.
+
+A man and a dog came from the laurel thickets of the valley where the
+white brook brawled with the rocks. They followed the deep line of the
+path across the ridges. The dog--a large lemon and white setter--walked,
+tranquilly meditative, at his master's heels.
+
+Suddenly from some unknown and yet near place in advance there came a
+dry, shrill whistling rattle that smote motion instantly from the limbs
+of the man and the dog. Like the fingers of a sudden death, this sound
+seemed to touch the man at the nape of the neck, at the top of the
+spine, and change him, as swift as thought, to a statue of listening
+horror, surprise, rage. The dog, too--the same icy hand was laid upon
+him, and he stood crouched and quivering, his jaw dropping, the froth of
+terror upon his lips, the light of hatred in his eyes.
+
+Slowly the man moved his hands toward the bushes, but his glance did not
+turn from the place made sinister by the warning rattle. His fingers,
+unguided, sought for a stick of weight and strength. Presently they
+closed about one that seemed adequate, and holding this weapon poised
+before him the man moved slowly forward, glaring. The dog with his
+nervous nostrils fairly fluttering moved warily, one foot at a time,
+after his master.
+
+But when the man came upon the snake, his body underwent a shock as if
+from a revelation, as if after all he had been ambushed. With a blanched
+face, he sprang forward and his breath came in strained gasps, his chest
+heaving as if he were in the performance of an extraordinary muscular
+trial. His arm with the stick made a spasmodic, defensive gesture.
+
+The snake had apparently been crossing the path in some mystic travel
+when to his sense there came the knowledge of the coming of his foes.
+The dull vibration perhaps informed him, and he flung his body to face
+the danger. He had no knowledge of paths; he had no wit to tell him to
+slink noiselessly into the bushes. He knew that his implacable enemies
+were approaching; no doubt they were seeking him, hunting him. And so he
+cried his cry, an incredibly swift jangle of tiny bells, as burdened
+with pathos as the hammering upon quaint cymbals by the Chinese at war--
+for, indeed, it was usually his death-music.
+
+"Beware! Beware! Beware!"
+
+The man and the snake confronted each other. In the man's eyes were
+hatred and fear. In the snake's eyes were hatred and fear. These enemies
+maneuvered, each preparing to kill. It was to be a battle without mercy.
+Neither knew of mercy for such a situation. In the man was all the wild
+strength of the terror of his ancestors, of his race, of his kind. A
+deadly repulsion had been handed from man to man through long dim
+centuries. This was another detail of a war that had begun evidently
+when first there were men and snakes. Individuals who do not participate
+in this strife incur the investigations of scientists. Once there was a
+man and a snake who were friends, and at the end, the man lay dead with
+the marks of the snake's caress just over his East Indian heart. In the
+formation of devices, hideous and horrible, Nature reached her supreme
+point in the making of the snake, so that priests who really paint hell
+well fill it with snakes instead of fire. The curving forms, these
+scintillant coloring create at once, upon sight, more relentless
+animosities than do shake barbaric tribes. To be born a snake is to be
+thrust into a place a-swarm with formidable foes. To gain an
+appreciation of it, view hell as pictured by priests who are really
+skilful.
+
+As for this snake in the pathway, there was a double curve some inches
+back of its head, which, merely by the potency of its lines, made the
+man feel with tenfold eloquence the touch of the death-fingers at the
+nape of his neck. The reptile's head was waving slowly from side to side
+and its hot eyes flashed like little murder-lights. Always in the air
+was the dry, shrill whistling of the rattles.
+
+"Beware! Beware! Beware!"
+
+The man made a preliminary feint with his stick. Instantly the snake's
+heavy head and neck were bended back on the double curve and instantly
+the snake's body shot forward in a low, strait, hard spring. The man
+jumped with a convulsive chatter and swung his stick. The blind,
+sweeping blow fell upon the snake's head and hurled him so that steel-
+colored plates were for a moment uppermost. But he rallied swiftly,
+agilely, and again the head and neck bended back to the double curve,
+and the steaming, wide-open mouth made its desperate effort to reach its
+enemy. This attack, it could be seen, was despairing, but it was
+nevertheless impetuous, gallant, ferocious, of the same quality as the
+charge of the lone chief when the walls of white faces close upon him in
+the mountains. The stick swung unerringly again, and the snake,
+mutilated, torn, whirled himself into the last coil.
+
+And now the man went sheer raving mad from the emotions of his
+forefathers and from his own. He came to close quarters. He gripped the
+stick with his two hands and made it speed like a flail. The snake,
+tumbling in the anguish of final despair, fought, bit, flung itself upon
+this stick which was taking his life.
+
+At the end, the man clutched his stick and stood watching in silence.
+The dog came slowly and with infinite caution stretched his nose
+forward, sniffing. The hair upon his neck and back moved and ruffled as
+if a sharp wind was blowing, the last muscular quivers of the snake were
+causing the rattles to still sound their treble cry, the shrill, ringing
+war chant and hymn of the grave of the thing that faces foes at once
+countless, implacable, and superior.
+
+"Well, Rover," said the man, turning to the dog with a grin of victory,
+"we'll carry Mr. Snake home to show the girls."
+
+His hands still trembled from the strain of the encounter, but he pried
+with his stick under the body of the snake and hoisted the limp thing
+upon it. He resumed his march along the path, and the dog walked
+tranquilly meditative, at his master's heels.
+
+
+
+
+LONDON IMPRESSIONS
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+London at first consisted of a porter with the most charming manners in
+the world, and a cabman with a supreme intelligence, both observing my
+profound ignorance without contempt or humor of any kind observable in
+their manners. It was in a great resounding vault of a place where there
+were many people who had come home, and I was displeased because they
+knew the detail of the business, whereas I was confronting the
+inscrutable. This made them appear very stony-hearted to the sufferings
+of one of whose existence, to be sure, they were entirely unaware, and I
+remember taking great pleasure in disliking them heartily for it. I was
+in an agony of mind over my baggage, or my luggage, or my--perhaps it is
+well to shy around this terrible international question; but I remember
+that when I was a lad I was told that there was a whole nation that said
+luggage instead of baggage, and my boyish mind was filled at the time
+with incredulity and scorn. In the present case it was a thing that I
+understood to involve the most hideous confessions of imbecility on my
+part, because I had evidently to go out to some obscure point and espy
+it and claim it, and take trouble for it; and I would rather have had my
+pockets filled with bread and cheese, and had no baggage at all.
+
+Mind you, this was not at all a homage that I was paying to London. I
+was paying homage to a new game. A man properly lazy does not like new
+experiences until they become old ones. Moreover, I have been taught
+that a man, any man, who has a thousand times more points of information
+on a certain thing than I have will bully me because of it, and pour his
+advantages upon my bowed head until I am drenched with his superiority.
+It was in my education to concede some license of the kind in this case,
+but the holy father of a porter and the saintly cabman occupied the
+middle distance imperturbably, and did not come down from their hills to
+clout me with knowledge. From this fact I experienced a criminal
+elation. I lost view of the idea that if I had been brow-beaten by
+porters and cabmen from one end of the United States to the other end I
+should warmly like it, because in numbers they are superior to me, and
+collectively they can have a great deal of fun out of a matter that
+would merely afford me the glee of the latent butcher.
+
+This London, composed of a porter and a cabman, stood to me subtly as a
+benefactor. I had scanned the drama, and found that I did not believe
+that the mood of the men emanated unduly from the feature that there was
+probably more shillings to the square inch of me than there were
+shillings to the square inch of them. Nor yet was it any manner of
+palpable warm-heartedness or other natural virtue. But it was a perfect
+artificial virtue; it was drill, plain, simple drill. And now was I glad
+of their drilling, and vividly approved of it, because I saw that it was
+good for me. Whether it was good or bad for the porter and the cabman I
+could not know; but that point, mark you, came within the pale of my
+respectable rumination.
+
+I am sure that it would have been more correct for me to have alighted
+upon St. Paul's and described no emotion until I was overcome by the
+Thames Embankment and the Houses of Parliament. But as a matter of fact
+I did not see them for some days, and at this time they did not concern
+me at all. I was born in London at a railroad station, and my new vision
+encompassed a porter and a cabman. They deeply absorbed me in new
+phenomena, and I did not then care to see the Thames Embankment nor the
+Houses of Parliament. I considered the porter and the cabman to be more
+important.
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+The cab finally rolled out of the gas-lit vault into a vast expanse of
+gloom. This changed to the shadowy lines of a street that was like a
+passage in a monstrous cave. The lamps winking here and there resembled
+the little gleams at the caps of the miners. They were not very
+competent illuminations at best, merely being little pale flares of gas
+that at their most heroic periods could only display one fact concerning
+this tunnel--the fact of general direction. But at any rate I should
+have liked to have observed the dejection of a search-light if it had
+been called upon to attempt to bore through this atmosphere. In it each
+man sat in his own little cylinder of vision, so to speak. It was not so
+small as a sentry-box nor so large as a circus tent, but the walls were
+opaque, and what was passing beyond the dimensions of his cylinder no
+man knew.
+
+It was evident that the paving was very greasy, but all the cabs that
+passed through my cylinder were going at a round trot, while the wheels,
+shod in rubber, whirred merely like bicycles. The hoofs of the animals
+themselves did not make that wild clatter which I knew so well. New York
+in fact, roars always like ten thousand devils. We have ingenuous and
+simple ways of making a din in New York that cause the stranger to
+conclude that each citizen is obliged by statute to provide himself with
+a pair of cymbals and a drum. If anything by chance can be turned into a
+noise it is promptly turned. We are engaged in the development of a
+human creature with very large, sturdy, and doubly, fortified ears.
+
+It was not too late at night, but this London moved with the decorum and
+caution of an undertaker. There was a silence, and yet there was no
+silence. There was a low drone, perhaps a humming contributed inevitably
+by closely-gathered thousands, and yet on second thoughts it was to me
+silence. I had perched my ears for the note of London, the sound made
+simply by the existence of five million people in one place. I had
+imagined something deep, vastly deep, a bass from a mythical organ, but
+found as far as I was concerned, only a silence.
+
+New York in numbers is a mighty city, and all day and all night it cries
+its loud, fierce, aspiring cry, a noise of men beating upon barrels, a
+noise of men beating upon tin, a terrific racket that assails the abject
+skies. No one of us seemed to question this row as a certain consequence
+of three or four million people living together and scuffling for coin,
+with more agility, perhaps, but otherwise in the usual way. However,
+after this easy silence of London, which in numbers is a mightier city,
+I began to feel that there was a seduction in this idea of necessity.
+Our noise in New York was not a consequence of our rapidity at all. It
+was a consequence of our bad pavements.
+
+Any brigade of artillery in Europe that would love to assemble its
+batteries, and then go on a gallop over the land, thundering and
+thundering, would give up the idea of thunder at once if it could hear
+Tim Mulligan drive a beer wagon along one of the side streets of cobbled
+New York.
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+Finally a great thing came to pass. The cab horse, proceeding at a sharp
+trot, found himself suddenly at the top of an incline, where through the
+rain the pavement shone like an expanse of ice. It looked to me as if
+there was going to be a tumble. In an accident of such a kind a hansom
+becomes really a cannon in which a man finds that he has paid shillings
+for the privilege of serving as a projectile. I was making a rapid
+calculation of the arc that I would describe in my flight, when the
+horse met his crisis with a masterly device that I could not have
+imagined. He tranquilly braced his four feet like a bundle of stakes,
+and then, with a gentle gaiety of demeanor, he slid swiftly and
+gracefully to the bottom of the hill as if he had been a toboggan. When
+the incline ended he caught his gait again with great dexterity, and
+went pattering off through another tunnel.
+
+I at once looked upon myself as being singularly blessed by this sight.
+This horse had evidently originated this system of skating as a
+diversion, or, more probably, as a precaution against the slippery
+pavement; and he was, of course the inventor and sole proprietor--two
+terms that are not always in conjunction. It surely was not to be
+supposed that there could be two skaters like him in the world. He
+deserved to be known and publicly praised for this accomplishment. It
+was worthy of many records and exhibitions. But when the cab arrived at
+a place where some dipping streets met, and the flaming front of a
+music-hall temporarily widened my cylinder, behold there were many cabs,
+and as the moment of necessity came the horses were all skaters. They
+were gliding in all directions. It might have been a rink. A great
+omnibus was hailed by a hand under an umbrella on the side walk, and the
+dignified horses bidden to halt from their trot did not waste time in
+wild and unseemly spasms. They, too, braced their legs and slid gravely
+to the end of their momentum.
+
+It was not the feat, but it was the word which had at this time the
+power to conjure memories of skating parties on moonlit lakes, with
+laughter ringing over the ice, and a great red bonfire on the shore
+among the hemlocks.
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+A Terrible thing in nature is the fall of a horse in his harness. It is
+a tragedy. Despite their skill in skating there was that about the
+pavement on the rainy evening which filled me with expectations of
+horses going headlong. Finally it happened just in front. There was a
+shout and a tangle in the darkness, and presently a prostrate cab horse
+came within my cylinder. The accident having been a complete success and
+altogether concluded, a voice from the side walk said, "_Look_ out,
+now! _Be_ more careful, can't you?"
+
+I remember a constituent of a Congressman at Washington who had tried in
+vain to bore this Congressman with a wild project of some kind. The
+Congressman eluded him with skill, and his rage and despair ultimately
+culminated in the supreme grievance that he could not even get near
+enough to the Congressman to tell him to go to Hades.
+
+This cabman should have felt the same desire to strangle this man who
+spoke from the sidewalk. He was plainly impotent; he was deprived of the
+power of looking out. There was nothing now for which to look out. The
+man on the sidewalk had dragged a corpse from a pond and said to it,
+
+"_Be_ more careful, can't you, or you'll drown?" My cabman pulled
+up and addressed a few words of reproach to the other. Three or four
+figures loomed into my cylinder, and as they appeared spoke to the
+author or the victim of the calamity in varied terms of displeasure.
+Each of these reproaches was couched in terms that defined the situation
+as impending. No blind man could have conceived that the precipitate
+phrase of the incident was absolutely closed.
+
+"_Look_ out now, cawn't you?" And there was nothing in his mind
+which approached these sentiments near enough to tell them to go to
+Hades.
+
+However, it needed only an ear to know presently that these expressions
+were formulae. It was merely the obligatory dance which the Indians had
+to perform before they went to war. These men had come to help, but as a
+regular and traditional preliminary they had first to display to this
+cabman their idea of his ignominy.
+
+The different thing in the affair was the silence of the victim. He
+retorted never a word. This, too, to me seemed to be an obedience to a
+recognized form. He was the visible criminal, if there was a criminal,
+and there was born of it a privilege for them.
+
+They unfastened the proper straps and hauled back the cab. They fetched
+a mat from some obscure place of succor, and pushed it carefully under
+the prostrate thing. From this panting, quivering mass they suddenly and
+emphatically reconstructed a horse. As each man turned to go his way he
+delivered some superior caution to the cabman while the latter buckled
+his harness.
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+There was to be noticed in this band of rescuers a young man in evening
+clothes and top-hat. Now, in America a young man in evening clothes and
+a top-hat may be a terrible object. He is not likely to do violence, but
+he is likely to do impassivity and indifference to the point where they
+become worse than violence. There are certain of the more idle phases of
+civilization to which America has not yet awakened--and it is a matter
+of no moment if she remains unaware. This matter of hats is one of them.
+I recall a legend recited to me by an esteemed friend, ex-Sheriff of Tin
+Can, Nevada. Jim Cortright, one of the best gun-fighters in town, went
+on a journey to Chicago, and while there he procured a top-hat. He was
+quite sure how Tin Can would accept this innovation, but he relied on
+the celerity with which he could get a six-shooter in action. One Sunday
+Jim examined his guns with his usual care, placed the top-hat on the
+back of his head, and sauntered coolly out into the streets of Tin Can.
+
+Now, while Jim was in Chicago some progressive citizen had decided that
+Tin Can needed a bowling alley. The carpenters went to work the next
+morning, and an order for the balls and pins was telegraphed to Denver.
+In three days the whole population was concentrated at the new alley
+betting their outfits and their lives.
+
+It has since been accounted very unfortunate that Jim Cortright had not
+learned of bowling alleys at his mother's knee or even later in the
+mines. This portion of his mind was singularly belated. He might have
+been an Apache for all he knew of bowling alleys.
+
+In his careless stroll through the town, his hands not far from his belt
+and his eyes going sideways in order to see who would shoot first at the
+hat, he came upon this long, low shanty where Tin Can was betting itself
+hoarse over a game between a team from the ranks of Excelsior Hose
+Company No. 1 and a team composed from the _habitues_ of the "Red
+Light" saloon.
+
+Jim, in blank ignorance of bowling phenomena, wandered casually through
+a little door into what must always be termed the wrong end of a bowling
+alley. Of course, he saw that the supreme moment had come. They were not
+only shooting at the hat and at him, but the low-down cusses were using
+the most extraordinary and hellish ammunition. Still, perfectly
+undaunted, however, Jim retorted with his two Colts, and killed three of
+the best bowlers in Tin Can.
+
+The ex-Sheriff vouched for this story. He himself had gone headlong
+through the door at the firing of the first shot with that simple
+courtesy which leads Western men to donate the fighters plenty of room.
+He said that afterwards the hat was the cause of a number of other
+fights, and that finally a delegation of prominent citizens was obliged
+to wait upon Cortright and ask him if he wouldn't take that thing away
+somewhere and bury it. Jim pointed out to them that it was his hat, and
+that he would regard it as a cowardly concession if he submitted to
+their dictation in the matter of his headgear. He added that he purposed
+to continue to wear his top-hat on every occasion when he happened to
+feel that the wearing of a top-hat was a joy and a solace to him.
+
+The delegation sadly retired, and announced to the town that Jim
+Cortright had openly defied them, and had declared his purpose of
+forcing his top-hat on the pained attention of Tin Can whenever he
+chose. Jim Cortright's plug hat became a phrase with considerable
+meaning to it.
+
+However, the whole affair ended in a great passionate outburst of
+popular revolution. Spike Foster was a friend of Cortright, and one day,
+when the latter was indisposed, Spike came to him and borrowed the hat.
+He had been drinking heavily at the "Red Light," and was in a supremely
+reckless mood. With the terrible gear hanging jauntily over his eye and
+his two guns drawn, he walked straight out into the middle of the square
+in front of the Palace Hotel, and drew the attention of all Tin Can by a
+blood-curdling imitation of the yowl of a mountain lion.
+
+This was when the long suffering populace arose as one man. The top-hat
+had been flaunted once too often. When Spike Foster's friends came to
+carry him away they found nearly a hundred and fifty men shooting busily
+at a mark--and the mark was the hat.
+
+My informant told me that he believed he owed his popularity in Tin Can,
+and subsequently his election to the distinguished office of Sheriff, to
+the active and prominent part he had taken in the proceedings.
+
+The enmity to the top-hat expressed by the convincing anecdote exists in
+the American West at present, I think, in the perfection of its
+strength; but disapproval is not now displayed by volleys from the
+citizens, save in the most aggravating cases. It is at present usually a
+matter of mere jibe and general contempt. The East, however, despite a
+great deal of kicking and gouging, is having the top-hat stuffed slowly
+and carefully down its throat, and there now exist many young men who
+consider that they could not successfully conduct their lives without
+this furniture.
+
+To speak generally, I should say that the headgear then supplies them
+with a kind of ferocity of indifference. There is fire, sword, and
+pestilence in the way they heed only themselves. Philosophy should
+always know that indifference is a militant thing. It batters down the
+walls of cities, and murders the women and children amid flames and the
+purloining of altar vessels. When it goes away it leaves smoking ruins,
+where lie citizens bayoneted through the throat. It is not a children's
+pastime like mere highway robbery.
+
+Consequently in America we may be much afraid of these young men. We
+dive down alleys so that we may not kowtow. It is a fearsome thing.
+
+Taught thus a deep fear of the top-hat in its effect upon youth, I was
+not prepared for the move of this particular young man when the cab-
+horse fell. In fact, I grovelled in my corner that I might not see the
+cruel stateliness of his passing. But in the meantime he had crossed the
+street, and contributed the strength of his back and some advice, as
+well as the formal address, to the cabman on the importance of looking
+out immediately.
+
+I felt that I was making a notable collection. I had a new kind of
+porter, a cylinder of vision, horses that could skate, and now I added a
+young man in a top-hat who would tacitly admit that the beings around
+him were alive. He was not walking a churchyard filled with inferior
+headstones. He was walking the world, where there were people, many
+people.
+
+But later I took him out of the collection. I thought he had rebelled
+against the manner of a class, but I soon discovered that the top-hat
+was not the property of a class. It was the property of rogues, clerks,
+theatrical agents, damned seducers, poor men, nobles, and others. In
+fact, it was the universal rigging. It was the only hat; all other forms
+might as well be named ham, or chops, or oysters. I retracted my
+admiration of the young man because he may have been merely a rogue.
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+There was a window whereat an enterprising man by dodging two placards
+and a calendar was entitled to view a young woman. She was dejectedly
+writing in a large book. She was ultimately induced to open the window a
+trifle. "What nyme, please?" she said wearily. I was surprised to hear
+this language from her. I had expected to be addressed on a submarine
+topic. I have seen shell fishes sadly writing in large books at the
+bottom of a gloomy acquarium who could not ask me what was my "nyme."
+
+At the end of the hall there was a grim portal marked "lift." I pressed
+an electric button and heard an answering tinkle in the heavens. There
+was an upholstered settle near at hand, and I discovered the reason. A
+deer-stalking peace drooped upon everything, and in it a man could
+invoke the passing of a lazy pageant of twenty years of his life. The
+dignity of a coffin being lowered into a grave surrounded the ultimate
+appearance of the lift. The expert we in America call the elevator-boy
+stepped from the car, took three paces forward, faced to attention and
+saluted. This elevator boy could not have been less than sixty years of
+age; a great white beard streamed towards his belt. I saw that the lift
+had been longer on its voyage than I had suspected.
+
+Later in our upward progress a natural event would have been an
+establishment of social relations. Two enemies imprisoned together
+during the still hours of a balloon journey would, I believe, suffer a
+mental amalgamation. The overhang of a common fate, a great principal
+fact, can make an equality and a truce between any pair. Yet, when I
+disembarked, a final survey of the grey beard made me recall that I had
+failed even to ask the boy whether he had not taken probably three trips
+on this lift.
+
+My windows overlooked simply a great sea of night, in which were
+swimming little gas fishes.
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+I have of late been led to reflect wistfully that many of the
+illustrators are very clever. In an impatience, which was donated by a
+certain economy of apparel, I went to a window to look upon day-lit
+London. There were the 'buses parading the streets with the miens of
+elephants There were the police looking precisely as I had been informed
+by the prints. There were the sandwich-men. There was almost everything.
+
+But the artists had not told me the sound of London. Now, in New York
+the artists are able to portray sound because in New York a dray is not
+a dray at all; it is a great potent noise hauled by two or more horses.
+When a magazine containing an illustration of a New York street is sent
+to me, I always know it beforehand. I can hear it coming through the
+mails. As I have said previously, this which I must call sound of London
+was to me only a silence.
+
+Later, in front of the hotel a cabman that I hailed said to me--"Are you
+gowing far, sir? I've got a byby here, and want to giv'er a bit of a
+blough." This impressed me as being probably a quotation from an early
+Egyptian poet, but I learned soon enough that the word "byby" was the
+name of some kind or condition of horse. The cabman's next remark was
+addressed to a boy who took a perilous dive between the byby's nose and
+a cab in front. "That's roight. Put your head in there and get it
+jammed--a whackin good place for it, I should think." Although the tone
+was low and circumspect, I have never heard a better off-handed
+declamation. Every word was cut clear of disreputable alliances with its
+neighbors. The whole thing was clean as a row of pewter mugs. The
+influence of indignation upon the voice caused me to reflect that we
+might devise a mechanical means of inflaming some in that constellation
+of mummers which is the heritage of the Anglo-Saxon race.
+
+Then I saw the drilling of vehicles by two policemen. There were four
+torrents converging at a point, and when four torrents converge at one
+point engineering experts buy tickets for another place.
+
+But here, again, it was drill, plain, simple drill. I must not falter in
+saying that I think the management of the traffic--as the phrase goes--
+to be distinctly illuminating and wonderful. The police were not ruffled
+and exasperated. They were as peaceful as two cows in a pasture.
+
+I can remember once remarking that mankind, with all its boasted modern
+progress, had not yet been able to invent a turnstile that will commute
+in fractions. I have now learned that 756 rights-of-way cannot operate
+simultaneously at one point. Right-of-way, like fighting women, requires
+space. Even two rights-of-way can make a scene which is only suited to
+the tastes of an ancient public.
+
+This truth was very evidently recognized. There was only one right-of-
+way at a time. The police did not look behind them to see if their
+orders were to be obeyed; they knew they were to be obeyed. These four
+torrents were drilling like four battalions. The two blue-cloth men
+maneuvered them in solemn, abiding peace, the silence of London.
+
+I thought at first that it was the intellect of the individual, but I
+looked at one constable closely and his face was as afire with
+intelligence as a flannel pin-cushion. It was not the police, and it was
+not the crowd. It was the police and the crowd. Again, it was drill.
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+I have never been in the habit of reading signs. I don't like to read
+signs. I have never met a man that liked to read signs. I once invented
+a creature who could play the piano with a hammer, and I mentioned him
+to a professor in Harvard University whose peculiarity was Sanscrit. He
+had the same interest in my invention that I have in a certain kind of
+mustard. And yet this mustard has become a part of me. Or, I have become
+a part of this mustard. Further, I know more of an ink, a brand of hams,
+a kind of cigarette, and a novelist than any man living. I went by train
+to see a friend in the country, and after passing through a patent
+mucilage, some more hams, a South African Investment Company, a Parisian
+millinery firm, and a comic journal, I alighted at a new and original
+kind of corset. On my return journey the road almost continuously ran
+through soap.
+
+I have accumulated superior information concerning these things, because
+I am at their mercy. If I want to know where I am I must find the
+definitive sign. This accounts for my glib use of the word mucilage, as
+well as the titles of other staples.
+
+I suppose even the Briton in mixing his life must sometimes consult the
+labels on 'buses and streets and stations, even as the chemist consults
+the labels on his bottles and boxes. A brave man would possibly affirm
+that this was suggested by the existence of the labels.
+
+The reason that I did not learn more about hams and mucilage in New York
+seems to me to be partly due to the fact that the British advertiser is
+allowed to exercise an unbridled strategy in his attack with his new
+corset or whatever upon the defensive public. He knows that the
+vulnerable point is the informatory sign which the citizen must, of
+course, use for his guidance, and then, with horse, foot, guns, corsets,
+hams, mucilage, investment companies, and all, he hurls himself at the
+point.
+
+Meanwhile I have discovered a way to make the Sanscrit scholar heed my
+creature who plays the piano with a hammer.
+
+
+
+
+THE SCOTCH EXPRESS
+
+
+The entrance to Euston Station is of itself sufficiently imposing. It
+is a high portico of brown stone, old and grim, in form a casual
+imitation, no doubt, of the front of the temple of Nike Apteros, with a
+recollection of the Egyptians proclaimed at the flanks. The frieze,
+where of old would prance an exuberant processional of gods, is, in this
+case, bare of decoration, but upon the epistyle is written in simple,
+stern letters the word "EUSTON." The legend reared high by the gloomy
+Pelagic columns stares down a wide avenue, In short, this entrance to a
+railway station does not in any way resemble the entrance to a railway
+station. It is more the front of some venerable bank. But it has another
+dignity, which is not born of form. To a great degree, it is to the
+English and to those who are in England the gate to Scotland.
+
+The little hansoms are continually speeding through the gate, dashing
+between the legs of the solemn temple; the four-wheelers, their tops
+crowded with luggage, roll in and out constantly, and the footways beat
+under the trampling of the people. Of course, there are the suburbs and
+a hundred towns along the line, and Liverpool, the beginning of an
+important sea-path to America, and the great manufacturing cities of the
+North; but if one stands at this gate in August particularly, one must
+note the number of men with gun-cases, the number of women who surely
+have Tam-o'-Shanters and plaids concealed within their luggage, ready
+for the moors. There is, during the latter part of that month, a
+wholesale flight from London to Scotland which recalls the July throngs
+leaving New York for the shore or the mountains.
+
+The hansoms, after passing through this impressive portal of the
+station, bowl smoothly across a courtyard which is in the center of the
+terminal hotel, an institution dear to most railways in Europe. The
+traveler lands amid a swarm of porters, and then proceeds cheerfully to
+take the customary trouble for his luggage. America provides a
+contrivance in a thousand situations where Europe provides a man or
+perhaps a number of men, and the work of our brass check is here done by
+porters, directed by the traveler himself. The men lack the memory of
+the check; the check never forgets its identity. Moreover, the European
+railways generously furnish the porters at the expense of the traveler.
+Nevertheless, if these men have not the invincible business precision of
+the check, and if they have to be tipped, it can be asserted for those
+who care that in Europe one-half of the populace waits on the other half
+most diligently and well.
+
+Against the masonry of a platform, under the vaulted arch of the train-
+house, lay a long string of coaches. They were painted white on the
+bulging part, which led halfway down from the top, and the bodies were a
+deep bottle-green. There was a group of porters placing luggage in the
+van, and a great many others were busy with the affairs of passengers,
+tossing smaller bits of luggage into the racks over the seats, and
+bustling here and there on short quests. The guard of the train, a tall
+man who resembled one of the first Napoleon's veterans, was caring for
+the distribution of passengers into the various bins. There were no
+second-class compartments; they were all third and first-class.
+
+The train was at this time engineless, but presently a railway "flier,"
+painted a glowing vermilion, slid modestly down and took its place at
+the head. The guard walked along the platform, and decisively closed
+each door. He wore a dark blue uniform thoroughly decorated with silver
+braid in the guise of leaves. The way of him gave to this business the
+importance of a ceremony. Meanwhile the fireman had climbed down from
+the cab and raised his hand, ready to transfer a signal to the driver,
+who stood looking at his watch. In the interval there had something
+progressed in the large signal box that stands guard at Euston. This
+high house contains many levers, standing in thick, shining ranks. It
+perfectly resembles an organ in some great church, if it were not that
+these rows of numbered and indexed handles typify something more acutely
+human than does a keyboard. It requires four men to play this organ-like
+thing, and the strains never cease. Night and day, day and night, these
+four men are walking to and fro, from this lever to that lever, and
+under their hands the great machine raises its endless hymn of a world
+at work, the fall and rise of signals and the clicking swing of
+switches.
+
+And so as the vermilion engine stood waiting and looking from the shadow
+of the curve-roofed station, a man in the signal house had played the
+notes that informed the engine of its freedom. The driver saw the fall
+of those proper semaphores which gave him liberty to speak to his steel
+friend. A certain combination in the economy of the London and
+Northwestern Railway, a combination which had spread from the men who
+sweep out the carriages through innumerable minds to the general manager
+himself, had resulted in the law that the vermilion engine, with its
+long string of white and bottle-green coaches, was to start forthwith
+toward Scotland.
+
+Presently the fireman, standing with his face toward the rear, let fall
+his hand. "All right," he said. The driver turned a wheel, and as the
+fireman slipped back, the train moved along the platform at the pace of
+a mouse. To those in the tranquil carriages this starting was probably
+as easy as the sliding of one's hand over a greased surface, but in the
+engine there was more to it. The monster roared suddenly and loudly, and
+sprang forward impetuously. A wrong-headed or maddened draft-horse will
+plunge in its collar sometimes when going up a hill. But this load of
+burdened carriages followed imperturbably at the gait of turtles. They
+were not to be stirred from their way of dignified exit by the impatient
+engine. The crowd of porters and transient people stood respectful. They
+looked with the indefinite wonder of the railway-station sight-seer upon
+the faces at the windows of the passing coaches. This train was off for
+Scotland. It had started from the home of one accent to the home of
+another accent. It was going from manner to manner, from habit to habit,
+and in the minds of these London spectators there surely floated dim
+images of the traditional kilts, the burring speech, the grouse, the
+canniness, the oat-meal, all the elements of a romantic Scotland.
+
+The train swung impressively around the signal-house, and headed up a
+brick-walled cut. In starting this heavy string of coaches, the engine
+breathed explosively. It gasped, and heaved, and bellowed; once, for a
+moment, the wheels spun on the rails, and a convulsive tremor shook the
+great steel frame.
+
+The train itself, however, moved through this deep cut in the body of
+London with coolness and precision, and the employees of the railway,
+knowing the train's mission, tacitly presented arms at its passing. To
+the travelers in the carriages, the suburbs of London must have been one
+long monotony of carefully made walls of stone or brick. But after the
+hill was climbed, the train fled through pictures of red habitations of
+men on a green earth.
+
+But the noise in the cab did not greatly change its measure. Even though
+the speed was now high, the tremendous thumping to be heard in the cab
+was as alive with strained effort and as slow in beat as the breathing
+of a half-drowned man. At the side of the track, for instance, the sound
+doubtless would strike the ear in the familiar succession of incredibly
+rapid puffs; but in the cab itself, this land-racer breathes very like
+its friend, the marine engine. Everybody who has spent time on shipboard
+has forever in his head a reminiscence of the steady and methodical
+pounding of the engines, and perhaps it is curious that this relative
+which can whirl over the land at such a pace, breathes in the leisurely
+tones that a man heeds when he lies awake at night in his berth.
+
+There had been no fog in London, but here on the edge of the city a
+heavy wind was blowing, and the driver leaned aside and yelled that it
+was a very bad day for traveling on an engine. The engine-cabs of
+England, as of all Europe, are seldom made for the comfort of the men.
+One finds very often this apparent disregard for the man who does the
+work--this indifference to the man who occupies a position which for the
+exercise of temperance, of courage, of honesty, has no equal at the
+altitude of prime ministers. The American engineer is the gilded
+occupant of a salon in comparison with his brother in Europe. The man
+who was guiding this five-hundred-ton bolt, aimed by the officials of
+the railway at Scotland, could not have been as comfortable as a shrill
+gibbering boatman of the Orient. The narrow and bare bench at his side
+of the cab was not directly intended for his use, because it was so low
+that he would be prevented by it from looking out of the ship's port-
+hole which served him as a window. The fireman, on his side, had other
+difficulties. His legs would have had to straggle over some pipes at the
+only spot where there was a prospect, and the builders had also
+strategically placed a large steel bolt. Of course it is plain that the
+companies consistently believe that the men will do their work better if
+they are kept standing. The roof of the cab was not altogether a roof.
+It was merely a projection of two feet of metal from the bulkhead which
+formed the front of the cab. There were practically no sides to it, and
+the large cinders from the soft coal whirled around in sheets. From time
+to time the driver took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his
+blinking eyes.
+
+London was now well to the rear. The vermilion engine had been for some
+time flying like the wind. This train averages, between London and
+Carlisle forty-nine and nine-tenth miles an hour. It is a distance of
+299 miles. There is one stop. It occurs at Crewe, and endures five
+minutes. In consequence, the block signals flashed by seemingly at the
+end of the moment in which they were sighted.
+
+There can be no question of the statement that the road-beds of English
+railways are at present immeasurably superior to the American road-beds.
+Of course there is a clear reason. It is known to every traveler that
+peoples of the Continent of Europe have no right at all to own railways.
+Those lines of travel are too childish and trivial for expression. A
+correct fate would deprive the Continent of its railways, and give them
+to somebody who knew about them.
+
+The continental idea of a railway is to surround a mass of machinery
+with forty rings of ultra-military law, and then they believe they have
+one complete. The Americans and the English are the railway peoples.
+That our road-beds are poorer than the English road-beds is because of
+the fact that we were suddenly obliged to build thousands upon thousands
+of miles of railway, and the English were obliged to build slowly tens
+upon tens of miles. A road-bed from New York to San Francisco, with
+stations, bridges, and crossings of the kind that the London and
+Northwestern owns from London to Glasgow, would cost a sum large enough
+to support the German army for a term of years. The whole way is
+constructed with the care that inspired the creators of some of our now
+obsolete forts along the Atlantic coast.
+
+An American engineer, with his knowledge of the difficulties he had to
+encounter--the wide rivers with variable banks, the mountain chains,
+perhaps the long spaces of absolute desert; in fact, all the
+perplexities of a vast and somewhat new country--would not dare spend a
+respectable portion of his allowance on seventy feet of granite wall
+over a gully, when he knew he could make an embankment with little cost
+by heaving up the dirt and stones from here and there. But the English
+road is all made in the pattern by which the Romans built their
+highways. After England is dead, savants will find narrow streaks of
+masonry leading from ruin to ruin. Of course this does not always seem
+convincingly admirable. It sometimes resembles energy poured into a rat-
+hole. There is a vale between expediency and the convenience of
+posterity, a mid-ground which enables men surely to benefit the
+hereafter people by valiantly advancing the present; and the point is
+that, if some laborers live in unhealthy tenements in Cornwall, one is
+likely to view with incomplete satisfaction the record of long and
+patient labor and thought displayed by an eight-foot drain for a
+nonexistent, impossible rivulet in the North. This sentence does not
+sound strictly fair, but the meaning one wishes to convey is that if an
+English company spies in its dream the ghost of an ancient valley that
+later becomes a hill, it would construct for it a magnificent steel
+trestle, and consider that a duty had been performed in proper
+accordance with the company's conscience. But after all is said of it,
+the accidents and the miles of railway operated in England are not in
+proportion to the accidents and the miles of railway operated in the
+United States. The reason can be divided into three parts--older
+conditions, superior caution, the road-bed. And of these, the greatest
+is older conditions.
+
+In this flight toward Scotland one seldom encountered a grade crossing.
+In nine cases of ten there was either a bridge or a tunnel. The
+platforms of even the remote country stations were all of ponderous
+masonry in contrast to our constructions of planking. There was always
+to be seen, as we thundered toward a station of this kind, a number of
+porters in uniform, who requested the retreat of any one who had not the
+wit to give us plenty of room. And then, as the shrill warning of the
+whistle pierced even the uproar that was about us, came the wild joy of
+the rush past a station. It was something in the nature of a triumphal
+procession conducted at thrilling speed. Perhaps there was a curve of
+infinite grace, a sudden hollow explosive effect made by the passing of
+a signal-box that was close to the track, and then the deadly lunge to
+shave the edge of a long platform. There were always a number of people
+standing afar, with their eyes riveted upon this projectile, and to be
+on the engine was to feel their interest and admiration in the terror
+and grandeur of this sweep. A boy allowed to ride with the driver of the
+band-wagon as a circus parade winds through one of our village streets
+could not exceed for egotism the temper of a new man in the cab of a
+train like this one. This valkyric journey on the back of the vermilion
+engine, with the shouting of the wind, the deep, mighty panting of the
+steed, the gray blur at the track-side, the flowing quicksilver ribbon
+of the other rails, the sudden clash as a switch intersects, all the din
+and fury of this ride, was of a splendor that caused one to look abroad
+at the quiet, green landscape and believe that it was of a phlegm quiet
+beyond patience. It should have been dark, rain-shot, and windy; thunder
+should have rolled across its sky.
+
+It seemed, somehow, that if the driver should for a moment take his
+hands from his engine, it might swerve from the track as a horse from
+the road. Once, indeed, as he stood wiping his fingers on a bit of
+waste, there must have been something ludicrous in the way the solitary
+passenger regarded him. Without those finely firm hands on the bridle,
+the engine might rear and bolt for the pleasant farms lying in the
+sunshine at either side.
+
+This driver was worth contemplation. He was simply a quiet, middle-aged
+man, bearded, and with the little wrinkles of habitual geniality and
+kindliness spreading from the eyes toward the temple, who stood at his
+post always gazing out, through his round window, while, from time to
+time, his hands went from here to there over his levers. He seldom
+changed either attitude or expression. There surely is no engine-driver
+who does not feel the beauty of the business, but the emotion lies deep,
+and mainly inarticulate, as it does in the mind of a man who has
+experienced a good and beautiful wife for many years. This driver's face
+displayed nothing but the cool sanity of a man whose thought was buried
+intelligently in his business. If there was any fierce drama in it,
+there was no sign upon him. He was so lost in dreams of speed and
+signals and steam, that one speculated if the wonder of his tempestuous
+charge and its career over England touched him, this impassive rider of
+a fiery thing.
+
+It should be a well-known fact that, all over the world, the engine-
+driver is the finest type of man that is grown. He is the pick of the
+earth. He is altogether more worthy than the soldier, and better than
+the men who move on the sea in ships. He is not paid too much; nor do
+his glories weight his brow; but for outright performance, carried on
+constantly, coolly, and without elation, by a temperate, honest, clear-
+minded man, he is the further point. And so the lone human at his
+station in a cab, guarding money, lives, and the honor of the road, is a
+beautiful sight. The whole thing is aesthetic. The fireman presents the
+same charm, but in a less degree, in that he is bound to appear as an
+apprentice to the finished manhood of the driver. In his eyes, turned
+always in question and confidence toward his superior, one finds this
+quality; but his aspirations are so direct that one sees the same type
+in evolution.
+
+There may be a popular idea that the fireman's principal function is to
+hang his head out of the cab and sight interesting objects in the
+landscape. As a matter of fact, he is always at work. The dragon is
+insatiate. The fireman is continually swinging open the furnace-door,
+whereat a red shine flows out upon the floor of the cab, and shoveling
+in immense mouthfuls of coal to a fire that is almost diabolic in its
+madness. The feeding, feeding, feeding goes on until it appears as if it
+is the muscles of the fireman's arms that are speeding the long train.
+An engine running over sixty-five miles an hour, with 500 tons to drag,
+has an appetite in proportion to this task.
+
+View of the clear-shining English scenery is often interrupted between
+London and Crew by long and short tunnels. The first one was
+disconcerting. Suddenly one knew that the train was shooting toward a
+black mouth in the hills. It swiftly yawned wider, and then in a moment
+the engine dived into a place inhabitated by every demon of wind and
+noise. The speed had not been checked, and the uproar was so great that
+in effect one was simply standing at the center of a vast, black-walled
+sphere. The tubular construction which one's reason proclaimed had no
+meaning at all. It was a black sphere, alive with shrieks. But then on
+the surface of it there was to be seen a little needle-point of light,
+and this widened to a detail of unreal landscape. It was the world; the
+train was going to escape from this cauldron, this abyss of howling
+darkness. If a man looks through the brilliant water of a tropical pool,
+he can sometimes see coloring the marvels at the bottom the blue that
+was on the sky and the green that was on the foliage of this detail. And
+the picture shimmered in the heat-rays of a new and remarkable sun. It
+was when the train bolted out into the open air that one knew that it
+was his own earth.
+
+Once train met train in a tunnel. Upon the painting in the perfectly
+circular frame formed by the mouth there appeared a black square with
+sparks bursting from it. This square expanded until it hid everything,
+and a moment later came the crash of the passing. It was enough to make
+a man lose his sense of balance. It was a momentary inferno when the
+fireman opened the furnace door and was bathed in blood-red light as he
+fed the fires.
+
+The effect of a tunnel varied when there was a curve in it. One was
+merely whirling then heels over head, apparently in the dark, echoing
+bowels of the earth. There was no needle-point of light to which one's
+eyes clung as to a star.
+
+From London to Crew, the stern arm of the semaphore never made the train
+pause even for an instant. There was always a clear track. It was great
+to see, far in the distance, a goods train whooping smokily for the
+north of England on one of the four tracks. The overtaking of such a
+train was a thing of magnificent nothing for the long-strided engine,
+and as the flying express passed its weaker brother, one heard one or
+two feeble and immature puffs from the other engine, saw the fireman
+wave his hand to his luckier fellow, saw a string of foolish, clanking
+flat-cars, their freights covered with tarpaulins, and then the train
+was lost to the rear.
+
+The driver twisted his wheel and worked some levers, and the rhythmical
+chunking of the engine gradually ceased. Gliding at a speed that was
+still high, the train curved to the left, and swung down a sharp
+incline, to move with an imperial dignity through the railway yard at
+Rugby. There was a maze of switches, innumerable engines noisily pushing
+cars here and there, crowds of workmen who turned to look, a sinuous
+curve around the long train-shed, whose high wall resounded with the
+rumble of the passing express; and then, almost immediately, it seemed,
+came the open country again. Rugby had been a dream which one could
+properly doubt. At last the relaxed engine, with the same majesty of
+ease, swung into the high-roofed station at Crewe, and stopped on a
+platform lined with porters and citizens. There was instant bustle, and
+in the interest of the moment no one seemed particularly to notice the
+tired vermilion engine being led away.
+
+There is a five-minute stop at Crewe. A tandem of engines slip up, and
+buckled fast to the train for the journey to Carlisle. In the meantime,
+all the regulation items of peace and comfort had happened on the train
+itself. The dining-car was in the center of the train. It was divided
+into two parts, the one being a dining-room for first-class passengers,
+and the other a dining-room for the third-class passengers. They were
+separated by the kitchens and the larder. The engine, with all its
+rioting and roaring, had dragged to Crewe a car in which numbers of
+passengers were lunching in a tranquility that was almost domestic, on
+an average menu of a chop and potatoes, a salad, cheese, and a bottle of
+beer. Betimes they watched through the windows the great chimney-marked
+towns of northern England. They were waited upon by a young man of
+London, who was supported by a lad who resembled an American bell-boy.
+The rather elaborate menu and service of the Pullman dining-car is not
+known in England or on the Continent. Warmed roast beef is the exact
+symbol of a European dinner, when one is traveling on a railway.
+
+This express is named, both by the public and the company, the "Corridor
+Train," because a coach with a corridor is an unusual thing in England,
+and so the title has a distinctive meaning. Of course, in America, where
+there is no car which has not what we call an aisle, it would define
+nothing. The corridors are all at one side of the car. Doors open thence
+to little compartments made to seat four, or perhaps six, persons. The
+first-class carriages are very comfortable indeed, being heavily
+upholstered in dark, hard-wearing stuffs, with a bulging rest for the
+head. The third-class accommodations on this train are almost as
+comfortable as the first-class, and attract a kind of people that are
+not usually seen traveling third-class in Europe. Many people sacrifice
+their habit, in the matter of this train, to the fine conditions of the
+lower fare.
+
+One of the feats of the train is an electric button in each compartment.
+Commonly an electric button is placed high on the side of the carriage
+as an alarm signal, and it is unlawful to push it unless one is in
+serious need of assistance from the guard. But these bells also rang in
+the dining-car, and were supposed to open negotiations for tea or
+whatever. A new function has been projected on an ancient custom. No
+genius has yet appeared to separate these two meanings. Each bell rings
+an alarm and a bid for tea or whatever. It is perfect in theory then
+that, if one rings for tea, the guard comes to interrupt the murder, and
+that if one is being murdered, the attendant appears with tea. At any
+rate, the guard was forever being called from his reports and his
+comfortable seat in the forward end of the luggage-van by thrilling
+alarms. He often prowled the length of the train with hardihood and
+determination, merely to meet a request for a sandwich.
+
+The train entered Carlisle at the beginning of twilight. This is the
+border town, and an engine of the Caledonian Railway, manned by two men
+of broad speech, came to take the place of the tandem. The engine of
+these men of the North was much smaller than the others, but her cab was
+much larger, and would be a fair shelter on a stormy night. They had
+also built seats with hooks by which they hang them to the rail, and
+thus are still enabled to see through the round windows without
+dislocating their necks. All the human parts of the cab were covered
+with oilcloth. The wind that swirled from the dim twilight horizon made
+the warm glow from the furnace to be a grateful thing.
+
+As the train shot out of Carlisle, a glance backward could learn of the
+faint, yellow blocks of light from the carriages marked on the dimmed
+ground. The signals were now lamps, and shone palely against the sky.
+The express was entering night as if night were Scotland.
+
+There was a long toil to the summit of the hills, and then began the
+booming ride down the slope. There were many curves. Sometimes could be
+seen two or three signal lights at one time, twisting off in some new
+direction. Minus the lights and some yards of glistening rails, Scotland
+was only a blend of black and weird shapes. Forests which one could
+hardly imagine as weltering in the dewy placidity of evening sank to the
+rear as if the gods had bade them. The dark loom of a house quickly
+dissolved before the eyes. A station with its lamps became a broad
+yellow band that, to a deficient sense, was only a few yards in length.
+Below, in a deep valley, a silver glare on the waters of a river made
+equal time with the train. Signals appeared, grew, and vanished. In the
+wind and the mystery of the night, it was like sailing in an enchanted
+gloom. The vague profiles of hills ran like snakes across the somber
+sky. A strange shape boldly and formidably confronted the train, and
+then melted to a long dash of track as clean as sword-blades.
+
+The vicinity of Glasgow is unmistakable. The flames of pauseless
+industries are here and there marked on the distance. Vast factories
+stand close to the track, and reaching chimneys emit roseate flames. At
+last one may see upon a wall the strong reflection from furnaces, and
+against it the impish and inky figures of workingmen. A long, prison-
+like row of tenements, not at all resembling London, but in one way
+resembling New York, appeared to the left, and then sank out of sight
+like a phantom.
+
+At last the driver stopped the brave effort of his engine The 400 miles
+were come to the edge. The average speed of forty-nine and one-third
+miles each hour had been made, and it remained only to glide with the
+hauteur of a great express through the yard and into the station at
+Glasgow.
+
+A wide and splendid collection of signal lamps flowed toward the engine.
+With delicacy and care the train clanked over some switches, passes the
+signals, and then there shone a great blaze of arc-lamps, defining the
+wide sweep of the station roof. Smoothly, proudly, with all that vast
+dignity which had surrounded its exit from London, the express moved
+along its platform. It was the entrance into a gorgeous drawing-room of
+a man that was sure of everything.
+
+The porters and the people crowded forward. In their minds there may
+have floated dim images of the traditional music-halls, the bobbies, the
+'buses, the 'Arrys and 'Arriets, the swells of London.
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Men, Women, and Boats, by Stephen Crane
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MEN, WOMEN, AND BOATS ***
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