Moran of the Lady Letty | Page 4

to Mrs. Herrick and the girls who were
receiving, and took himself away. As he came out of the house and
stood for a moment on the steps, settling his hat gingerly upon his hair
so as not to disturb the parting, he was not by any means an ill-looking
chap. His good height was helped out by his long coat and his high silk
hat, and there was plenty of jaw in the lower part of his face. Nor was
his tailor altogether answerable for his shoulders. Three years before
this time Ross Wilbur had pulled at No. 5 in his varsity boat in an
Eastern college that was not accustomed to athletic discomfiture.
"I wonder what I'm going to do with myself until supper time," he
muttered, as he came down the steps, feeling for the middle of his stick.
He found no immediate answer to his question. But the afternoon was
fine, and he set off to walk in the direction of the town, with a
half-formed idea of looking in at his club.
At his club he found a letter in his box from his particular chum, who
had been spending the month shooting elk in Oregon.
"Dear Old Man," it said, "will be back on the afternoon you receive this.
Will hit the town on the three o'clock boat. Get seats for the best show
going--my treat--and arrange to assimilate nutriment at the Poodle
Dog--also mine. I've got miles of talk in me that I've got to reel off
before midnight. Yours. "JERRY."

"I've got a stand of horns for you, Ross, that are Glory Hallelujah."
"Well, I can't go," murmured Wilbur, as he remembered the Assembly
that was to come off that night and his engaged dance with Jo Herrick.
He decided that it would be best to meet Jerry as he came off the boat
and tell him how matters stood. Then he resolved, since no one that he
knew was in the club, and the instalment of the Paris weeklies had not
arrived, that it would be amusing to go down to the water-front and loaf
among the shipping until it was time for Jerry's boat.

Wilbur spent an hour along the wharves, watching the great grain ships
consigned to "Cork for orders" slowly gorging themselves with whole
harvests of wheat from the San Joaquin Valley; lumber vessels for
Durban and South African ports settling lower and lower to the water's
level as forests of pine and redwood stratified themselves along their
decks and in their holds; coal barges discharging from Nanaimo; busy
little tugs coughing and nuzzling at the flanks of the deep-sea tramps,
while hay barges and Italian whitehalls came and went at every turn. A
Stockton River boat went by, her stern wheel churning along behind,
like a huge net-reel; a tiny maelstrom of activity centred about an
Alaska Commercial Company's steamboat that would clear for Dawson
in the morning.
No quarter of one of the most picturesque cities in the world had more
interest for Wilbur than the water-front. In the mile or so of shipping
that stretched from the docks where the China steamships landed, down
past the ferry slips and on to Meiggs's Wharf, every maritime nation in
the world was represented. More than once Wilbur had talked to the
loungers of the wharves, stevedores out of work, sailors between
voyages, caulkers and ship chandlers' men looking--not too
earnestly--for jobs; so that on this occasion, when a little, undersized
fellow in dirty brown sweater and clothes of Barbary coast cut asked
him for a match to light his pipe, Wilbur offered a cigar and passed the
time of day with him. Wilbur had not forgotten that he himself was
dressed for an afternoon function. But the incongruity of the business
was precisely what most amused him.
After a time the fellow suggested drinks. Wilbur hesitated for a
moment. It would be something to tell about, however, so, "All right,
I'll drink with you," he said.
The brown sweater led the way to a sailors' boarding-house hard by.
The rear of the place was built upon piles over the water. But in front,
on the ground floor, was a barroom.
"Rum an' gum," announced the brown sweater, as the two came in and
took their places at the bar.
"Rum an' gum, Tuck; wattle you have, sir?"
"Oh--I don't know," hesitated Wilbur; "give me a mild Manhattan."
While the drinks were being mixed the brown sweater called Wilbur's
attention to a fighting head-dress from the Marquesas that was hung on

the wall over the free-lunch counter and opposite the bar. Wilbur turned
about to look at it, and remained so, his back to the barkeeper, till the
latter told them their drinks were ready.
"Well, mate, here's big