United States or Puerto Rico ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The regular thing, except thot ye make more than ye would as a runner only ye've got to muster 'em into the shippin'-office and sign 'em. I can't appear. Williams might be there, and cold-deck the deal." "Murphy, gimme me job back and I'm wid ye. But I want me priveleges a drink whin I nade it, and access to the bar for me frinds." "Right, Hennesey; let bygones be bygones.
Hennesey was a small man, sly, shrewd, and persuasive, and so far had given satisfaction in the difficult business of soliciting incoming crews to board at Murphy's house instead of the Sailors' Home, the Provident Seamen's Mission, and other like institutions. But Murphy's mood was strong upon him, and he asked, peremptorily: "Well, what did ye git?"
I'll take the main." The first mate was content to remain out of the proceedings for the present. Murphy and Hennesey went aloft, performed their part, and came down; then, when the two falls of the halyards were led to the two capstans, Murphy, with his hand in his pocket and his heart in his mouth, went among them.
"That's the least o' your troubles, and mine, Tim Hennesey. Put yer trust in Jasus and loose that mizzentopsail, while I get 'em to steady the braces."
"It is impossible at present to say anything definite about her, sir," I answered. "I saw her but for a second, and then only very indistinctly, but she loomed up through the fog like a craft of about our own size." "Very well, sir," answered Hennesey; "stay where you are, and keep a sharp lookout for her next appearance."
They've been to sea, and their part is to loose canvas and put ropes into the hands of the others. Your part is to see that they do it." The two officers turned their swollen faces toward Murphy and Hennesey, and inspected them through closed and blackened eyelids. Then they nodded, and the introduction was complete. "Come, Hennesey," said Murphy, briskly, now that the situation was defined.
So, leaving orders with his wife to watch the cash register in the bar, and to evict the boarders when they asked for trust, he took the train for Chicago, where lived a prosperous brother, for whom he had a sincere regard, and to whom he owed a long-promised visit. Brother Mike welcomed him, and under the softening influence of brotherly love he forgave Hennesey, but not Williams.
Murphy's fist shot out and Hennesey went down. Arising with bleeding nose, he shook his small fist at his chuckling assailant passing sidewise out of his door. "I'll not forgit thot, John Murphy," he spluttered. "I don't want ye to. Remember it while ye live; an' there's more where thot cum from, too, ye scab."
A boarding-master, or crimp, without the machinery, becomes a shipping-master, a go-between between the skipper and the boarding-master, whose income is the blood-money paid by skippers for men. Murphy, strolling along South Street a few days later, saw a new sign over a doorway Timothy Hennesey, Shipping-Master.
To properly equip this afterguard, Murphy pried out six more bricks from under the galley stove, solemnly distributed them with instructions as to their use, and then he and Hennesey replevined the half-empty bottles from the sleepers, an easy task for such skilled craftsmen. About noon the twenty-four awakened and clamored for their dinner.
Word Of The Day