Moran of the Lady Letty | Page 4

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 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