The Cruise of the Dry Dock | Page 5

company and rough fare with supercilious condemnation.
"Your friend's appetite sames as dilicate as his wor-rkin' powers,"
observed Hogan as he watched the Englishman stoop and disappear
through the doorway.
Madden smiled. "We didn't work any too hard this afternoon, did we?"
Mike and Pierre proved droll companions, ready to jibe at anyone or
anything in perfect good nature, so that it was an hour before Leonard
strolled outside. As he had no further duty, he climbed a long ladder to
the top of the high dock wall and walked forward toward the bridge.
By this time the sun had set and left the world filled with a luminous
yellow afterglow. The estuary of the Thames had widened abruptly off
Sheerness, and far to the south was the dim line of chalk cliffs that
England thrusts toward France. Overhead stretched a translucent
yellow-green sky with the long black line of the _Vulcan's_ smoke
marking it.
Leonard moved across the bridge slowly.
There was almost perfect silence over the great structure below him,
save for the slow creaking of new joints in the iron plates, the softened
chough-choughing of the tug ahead.
There were several paint barrels piled up on the bridge, slung there no

doubt by machinery, to prevent the men having to toil up with it from
below. The boy leaned against one of these barrels, gazing into the
yellow flood of light that bathed everything in its own saffron. His
heart beat high with a feeling of the hazard of the ocean. He tried to
fancy what would happen to the huge dock as it adventured through
tropic seas. His imagination readily conjured up a kaleidoscope of
incidents--cannibal proas, shark fights, sea serpents, typhoons, mutinies,
what not.
And at every turn of the tug's propeller all this bright dashing world of
adventure drew nearer and nearer. For some reason he recalled what the
bystander on the dock had said--"Everything is unreasonable at sea,"
and he laughed aloud.
As a sort of gloomy echo of his laugh, his ear caught a groan from the
other side of the paint barrels. With the utmost surprise and curiosity,
he straightened up and moved silently around the pile.
Then he saw the tall Englishman leaning across the bridge rail, face in
hands, staring at the line of land silhouetted in black between the
brazen sky and the reflecting water. Smith's whole attitude was so
suggestive of trouble that Madden moved forward in generous
sympathy.
The Englishman heard the movement, straightened, looked around; his
long face wore a look of suffering in the colored light.
"Sorry you're so blue, old man," sympathized the American, making a
guess at the cause of his bad spirits. "Let's have a turn around this old
tub and forget homesickness."
"Home!" echoed Caradoc gruffly. "It's--it's all England I'm leaving. It's
England and honor and--" he stiffened suddenly and snarled out: "Do
you think I climbed away up here on this bridge hunting your
company?"
Leonard was utterly nonplussed by this shift. "I'm sure I meant no
harm--"

"Certainly not," sneered Caradoc. "You Americans have the undesired
friendliness of stray puppies--you have no conception of personal
reserve--you turn your souls into moral vaudevilles."
A flush of indignation swept over Madden. "That's no decent return for
a friendly approach!" he declared hotly, "and I'd rather be a puppy than
a hedgehog any day!"
Caradoc made no reply, but seemed to erase Madden from his mind and
shifted slowly around to his staring and his thoughts.
This last bit of impudence fairly clanged on Madden's temper. He felt a
desire to tell this coxcomb just what he thought of him. If Caradoc had
remained facing the American, Madden might have done so, but it feels
foolish to rail at a profile. Madden wheeled angrily, tramped across the
bridge, then down the high side of the dock toward the ladder. From far
below him came Hogan's voice, a concertina, and the sound of clacking
feet. Apparently the Irishman had induced someone to dance a jig.
CHAPTER II
ADVENTURE BEGINS
Fortunately for the British Towing and Shipping Company, the next
few days were glassy calm, and as the Vulcan coughed along the South
England coast, the crew had fair opportunity to raise the coat of paint
out of danger.
They had finished the ends by this time and were now working on the
high exterior sides of the dock. The labor was distasteful to Leonard,
not within itself, but it is disagreeable to dangle in midair over a huge
iron wall, blue water gurgling below, and sit beside a man who has
affronted one by calling one's manners puppyish and one's soul a
vaudeville. Even if one really be fond of puppies and enjoy vaudeville,
the implication is unpleasant.
On the third morning after, Caradoc