Moran of the Lady Letty | Page 5

blocks an' taut hawse-pipes," said the brown
sweater cordially.
"Your very good health," returned Wilbur.
The brown sweater wiped a thin mustache in the hollow of his palm,
and wiped that palm upon his trouser leg.
"Yessir," he continued, once more facing the Marquesas head-dress.
"Yessir, they're queer game down there."
"In the Marquesas Islands, you mean?" said Wilbur.
"Yessir, they're queer game. When they ain't tattoin' theirselves with
Scripture tex's they git from the missionaries, they're pullin' out the
hairs all over their bodies with two clam-shells. Hair by hair, y'
understan'?"
"Pull'n out 'er hair?" said Wilbur, wondering what was the matter with
his tongue.
"They think it's clever--think the women folk like it."
Wilbur had fancied that the little man had worn a brown sweater when
they first met. But now, strangely enough, he was not in the least
surprised to see it iridescent like a pigeon's breast.
"Y' ever been down that way?" inquired the little man next.
Wilbur heard the words distinctly enough, but somehow they refused to
fit into the right places in his brain. He pulled himself together,
frowning heavily.
"What--did--you--say?" he asked with great deliberation, biting off his
words. Then he noticed that he and his companion were no longer in
the barroom, but in a little room back of it. His personality divided
itself. There was one Ross Wilbur--who could not make his hands go
where he wanted them, who said one word when he thought another,
and whose legs below the knee were made of solid lead. Then there
was another Ross Wilbur--Ross Wilbur, the alert, who was perfectly
clear-headed, and who stood off to one side and watched his twin
brother making a monkey of himself, without power and without even
the desire of helping him.
This latter Wilbur heard the iridescent sweater say:
"Bust me, if y' a'n't squiffy, old man. Stand by a bit an' we'll have a

ball."
"Can't have got--return--exceptionally--and the round table--pull out
hairs wi' tu clamsh'ls," gabbled Wilbur's stupefied double; and Wilbur
the alert said to himself: "You're not drunk, Ross Wilbur, that's certain;
what could they have put in your cocktail?"
The iridescent sweater stamped twice upon the floor and a trap- door
fell away beneath Wilbur's feet like the drop of a gallows. With the
eyes of his undrugged self Wilbur had a glimpse of water below. His
elbow struck the floor as he went down, and he fell feet first into a
Whitehall boat. He had time to observe two men at the oars and to look
between the piles that supported the house above him and catch a
glimpse of the bay and a glint of the Contra Costa shore. He was not in
the least surprised at what had happened, and made up his mind that it
would be a good idea to lie down in the boat and go to sleep.
Suddenly--but how long after his advent into the boat he could not
tell--his wits began to return and settle themselves, like wild birds
flocking again after a scare. Swiftly he took in the scene. The blue
waters of the bay around him, the deck of a schooner on which he stood,
the Whitehall boat alongside, and an enormous man with a face like a
setting moon wrangling with his friend in the sweater--no longer
iridescent.
"What do you call it?" shouted the red man. "I want able seamen-- I
don't figger on working this boat with dancing masters, do I? We ain't
exactly doing quadrilles on my quarterdeck. If we don't look out we'll
step on this thing and break it. It ain't ought to be let around loose
without its ma."
"Rot that," vociferated the brown sweater. "I tell you he's one of the
best sailor men on the front. If he ain't we'll forfeit the money. Come on,
Captain Kitchell, we made show enough gettin' away as it was, and this
daytime business ain't our line. D'you sign or not? Here's the advance
note. I got to duck my nut or I'll have the patrol boat after me."
"I'll sign this once," growled the other, scrawling his name on the note;
"but if this swab ain't up to sample, he'll come back by freight, an' I'll
drop in on mee dear friend Jim when we come back and give him a reel
nice time, an' you can lay to that, Billy Trim." The brown sweater
pocketed the note, went over the side, and rowed off.
Wilbur stood in the waist of a schooner anchored in the stream well off

Fisherman's wharf. In the forward part of the schooner a Chinaman in
brown duck was mixing paint. Wilbur was conscious that he still wore
his high hat and long coat, but his stick was gone and one