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These people about me are everyday people, people not so very far from the minimum wage, accustomed much as the everyday people of earth are accustomed to take their world as they find it. Such enquiries as I attempt are pretty obviously a bore to them, pass outside their range as completely as Utopian speculation on earth outranges a stevedore or a member of Parliament or a working plumber.
No, they had not telephoned me the sailing was delayed; couldn't say who had; certainly no one in the steamship office could think of doing such a thing, which sounded reasonable enough; knew nothing whatever about a delay, and were quite perturbed to hear I had been told there was; had no idea how it happened, but there was no doubt the Kut Sang would sail on schedule time, for the stevedore was there in the office at that minute getting lading-slips signed, and he knew of no delay.
Here sat I on a bench before the fire, the other guests of the cabin being the stevedore, who takes the job of getting the coal ashore, and the owner of the horse that raised the tackle the horse being driven by a boy. The cabin was lined with slabs the rudest and dirtiest hole imaginable, yet the passengers had been accommodated here in the trip from New Brunswick.
Grogan, then?" asked Babcock, after the delay in the delivery of the coal had been explained. He had been waiting for some such opportunity to discover more about his stevedore. He never discussed personalities with his men. "Well, I should say so known her for years. Best woman on top of Staten Island. Does she work for you?"
I believe the first thing that made me look up was a crash of glass, of crockery, the exclamation of the waiters, and running feet. "So here is where they boast of excitement?" roared a thick voice. "And yet a man must make it himself." The waiters had surrounded him, whoever he was, and I could not see him then. "Bah!" he cried, beginning to laugh like a stevedore. "I'm an American.
My costume was a cross between a shooting outfit and the everyday dress of a stevedore, while my hair appeared as if recently dressed with a currant bush. Captain Paul was equally unpresentable in fastidious parlors, but whatever our apparel it did not diminish the keenness of our appetites. The dinner was good, and the diners were hungry and happy.
His changed appearance induced a boss stevedore to hire him tallying cargo, which was more lucrative than fishing, and furnished, in time, a hat, pair of shoes, and an overcoat. He then rented a room and slept in a bed.
The decline of the ships appeared to be reflected in the bearing of their captains, more careless than before, worse dressed, with the military slovenliness of the trench-fighter, and with calloused hands as badly cared for as those of a stevedore. Among the naval men also there were some who had completely neglected their appearance.
The Chief grumbled, but somehow his grumbling did not sound genuine. "They're going to the Moon and leave us here to do stevedore stuff?" His tone was odd. He looked at a letter he'd been reading and gave up pretense. He said self-consciously: "Listen, you guys.... My tribe's got all excited. I just got a letter from the council. They've been having an argument about me. Wanna hear?"
A strapping young fellow in a red shirt came out of the stable door leading two other horses to the trough. Babcock looked about him in surprise at the extent of the establishment. He had supposed that his stevedore had a small outfit and needed all the work she could get. If, as McGaw had said, only boys did Grogan's work, they at least did it well. Crane mounted the porch first and knocked.
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