The herald., 1897-08-15
JOSEPH NRAD
author of NLnATERS F0LLT ETC..

| ing chimera, blinking It's green eyes at
it's old friend. 1t seemed to mediate
| leap on to the old mans lap over the
bent back of the ordinary seaman who
sat at Sullivan's feet. Young Charley
was lean and long-necked The ridge
of his backbone made chain Of small
| hills under the old shirt. His face of q
street-boy a face precocious, saga
cious, and ironic, with deep downward
| folds on each side Of the thin, wide
mouth-hung low over his bony knees.
| He was learning to make a lanyard
knot with a bit of an old rope. Small
drops of perspiration stood out on his
bulging forehead he shifted strongly
from time to time, glancing out of the
corners of his restless eyes at the old
seaman, who took no notice of the puz-
zled youngster muttering at his work.
The noise increased. Little Belfast
seemed, in the heavy heat of the fore
castle, to boil with facetious fury. His
eyes danced; in the crimson of his
| face, comical as a mask, the mouth
yawned black, with strange grimaces.
| Facing him, a half-undressed man held
his sides, and, throwing his head back,
| laughed with wet eyelashes. Others
stared with amazed eyes. Men sitting
doubled UP in the upper hunks smoked
short pipes, swinging bare brown feet
above the heads of those who, sprawl
ing below on sea-chests, listened, smil-
ing stupidity or scornfully. Archie, with
compressed lips, drew himself in, SEEM
ed to shrink into a smaller space, and
sewed steadily, industrious and dumb.
Belfast shrielSed like an inspired Der
wish: $50 I seez to him, boys. seez I.
| -s..B- +1 1nnt
second mate of that steamer-'beggin'
your-r-r pardon, sorr, the Board of
Trade must ave been drunk when they
granted you your certificate!' What do
you say, you - seez he, comm at
me like mad bull, all in his white
clothes; and 1 up with my tar-pot and
capsizes it all over his blamed lovely
face and his lovely jacket"
| Don't zee believe him! He never up
set no tar; was there!" shouted some
body.
The two Norwegians sat on a chest
side by side, alike and placid, resem-
bling pair of love-birds on perch,
and with round eyes stared innocently;
but the Russian Finn, in the racket of
explosive shouts and rolling laughter,
remained motionless, limp, and dull,
like a deaf man without a backbone.
Near him Archie smiled at his needle.
A broad-chested, slow-eyed newcomer
spoke deliberately to Belfast during an
exhausted lull in the noise: II wonder
any of the mates here are alive yet with
such a chap as you on board! I con-
cloode they amt that bad now, if you
had the tanning of them, sonny"
Not bad! Not bad" screamed Bel
fast IF it wasn't for us sticking to-
gether- Not bad! They amt never
bad when they amt got a chawnce,
blast their black arts
| Another'new hand-a man with shifty
eyes and a yellow hatchet face. who had
been listening open-mouthed in the
/ shadow or tne midsn1p locker, observed
in a squeaky voice: "Well, it's 'ome-
ward trip, anyhow. Bad or good I can
do it hall on my 'ed-s'long as I get
'ome. And l can look after my rights!
I will show emf
All the heads turned toward him.
Only the ordinary seaman and the cat
| took no notice. He stood with arms
alSimbo, little fellow with white eye
lashes His ears were bending down
under the weight of his battered hard
hat. The torn tails Of his black coat
tapped in fringes about the calves of his
legs. He unbuttoned the only two but
tons that remained, and every one saw
he had no shirt under it. 1t was his de-
served misfortune that those rags, which
nobody could possibly be supposed to
own, looked on him as if they had been
stolen. His neck was long and thin; his
eyelids We're red; rare hairs hung about
his jaws; his shoulders were peaked
and dropped like the broken wings of a
bird; all his left side was caked with