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"They've been gone more than a week," says she, "Zenobia and that reckless Kyrle Ballard. Pretty soon they will be coming back, and then " "Well, what then?" says I. "I've been packing up to-day," says she, swabbin' off a stray tear from the side of her nose. "I have engaged rooms at the Lady Louise. I suppose you will be leaving too." "Me?" says I.
"It beats all what a woman can do when she's that kind of a woman. She's done more swabbin' decks and overhaulin' runnin' riggin' than a new mate on a clipper. The place is so all-fired clean that I feel like brushin' myself every time I go to set down." "How's Captain Baxter?" asked Hazeltine. "Seems to be some better.
"Probably Dutchy didn't take no note of what the locoed little dogie DID say," thinks I to myself. The Irishman bellied up to the bar again, and pounded on it with his fist. "Look here!" he yells. "Listen to what I'm tellin' ye! God bless the Irish and let the Dutch rustle! Do ye hear me?" "Sure, I hear ye," says Dutchy, and goes on swabbin' his bar with a towel. At that my soul just grew sick.
I was swabbin' decks in the barn about eleven o'clock, when he come postin' in, white and shaky, and so nervous he couldn't stand still. Looked as if he had had a stroke almost. "Godfrey scissors! You don't s'pose Heman's comin' back has knocked out his chances for the committee, do you?" "No, sir-ee! 'twan't that.
'Same to you, Cap'n! he called out, and sheered off with a wave o' the hand, having made the boat fast astern. "I stared after him for a bit, and then I turned my attention to the Maid in Two Minds. Her boat, too, lay astern of her; and one of her crew was already on deck, swabbin' down. After a bit, another showed up. But Dog Mitchell made no appearance.
Once I caught her swabbin' her eyes, as if she'd been cryin'; but I'd never seen her and Willie together but the one time I told you of. "Four days and nights crawled by. No symptoms yet. The Pinkertons was watchin' the Gordon lawyers' office in New York, and they reported that nothin' like that agreement had reached there.
Here I am, big enough and old enough and ugly enough to know better, and yet every time the City Of Papeete or the Tropic Bird or the Aorangi come into port and I see the Kanaka boys swabbin' down decks and get a snifter o' that fine smell of the Island trade, my innards wilt down like a mess o' cabbage an' I ain't myself no more until after the fifth drink."
Why, when I popped into that thar room, and saw that lady all gold, furbelows, and spangles at twelve o'clock at night, sittin' in that cheer and you a-cuttin' her h'r and swabbin' her head o' blood, and kinder prospectin' for 'indications, so to speak, and doin' it so kam and indifferent like, I sez to myself, 'Rube, Rube, sez I, 'this yer's life! city life!
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