The Mucker | Page 7

all his life before, and, my, how his poor head did
hurt. Finding that it only seemed to make matters worse when he closed
his eyes Billy opened them again.
He looked about the room in which he lay. He found it a stuffy hole
filled with bunks in tiers three deep around the sides. In the center of
the room was a table. Above the table a lamp hung suspended from one
of the wooden beams of the ceiling.

The lamp arrested Billy's attention. It was swinging back and forth
rather violently. This could not be a hallucination. The room might
seem to be rising and falling, but that lamp could not seem to be
swinging around in any such manner if it were not really and truly
swinging. He couldn't account for it. Again he shut his eyes for a
moment. When he opened them to look again at the lamp he found it
still swung as before.
Cautiously he slid from his bunk to the floor. It was with difficulty that
he kept his feet. Still that might be but the effects of the liquor. At last
he reached the table to which he clung for support while he extended
one hand toward the lamp.
There was no longer any doubt! The lamp was beating back and forth
like the clapper of a great bell. Where was he? Billy sought a window.
He found some little round, glass-covered holes near the low ceiling at
one side of the room. It was only at the greatest risk to life and limb
that he managed to crawl on all fours to one of them.
As he straightened up and glanced through he was appalled at the sight
that met his eyes. As far as he could see there was naught but a
tumbling waste of water. And then the truth of what had happened to
him broke upon his understanding.
"An' I was goin' to roll that guy!" he muttered in helpless bewilderment.
"I was a-goin' to roll him, and now look here wot he has done to me!"
At that moment a light appeared above as the hatch was raised, and
Billy saw the feet and legs of a large man descending the ladder from
above. When the newcomer reached the floor and turned to look about
his eyes met Billy's, and Billy saw that it was his host of the previous
evening.
"Well, my hearty, how goes it?" asked the stranger.
"You pulled it off pretty slick," said Billy.
"What do you mean?" asked the other with a frown.

"Come off," said Billy; "you know what I mean."
"Look here," replied the other coldly. "Don't you forget that I'm mate of
this ship, an' that you want to speak respectful to me if you ain't lookin'
for trouble. My name's MR. Ward, an' when you speak to me say SIR.
Understand?"
Billy scratched his head, and blinked his eyes. He never before had
been spoken to in any such fashion--at least not since he had put on the
avoirdupois of manhood. His head ached horribly and he was sick to
his stomach--frightfully sick. His mind was more upon his physical
suffering than upon what the mate was saying, so that quite a
perceptible interval of time elapsed before the true dimensions of the
affront to his dignity commenced to percolate into the befogged and
pain-racked convolutions of his brain.
The mate thought that his bluster had bluffed the new hand. That was
what he had come below to accomplish. Experience had taught him that
an early lesson in discipline and subordination saved unpleasant
encounters in the future. He also had learned that there is no better time
to put a bluff of this nature across than when the victim is suffering
from the after-effects of whiskey and a drug--mentality, vitality, and
courage are then at their lowest ebb. A brave man often is reduced to
the pitiful condition of a yellow dog when nausea sits astride his
stomach.
But the mate was not acquainted with Billy Byrne of Kelly's gang.
Billy's brain was befuddled, so that it took some time for an idea to
wriggle its way through, but his courage was all there, and all to the
good. Billy was a mucker, a hoodlum, a gangster, a thug, a tough.
When he fought, his methods would have brought a flush of shame to
the face of His Satanic Majesty. He had hit oftener from behind than
from before. He had always taken every advantage of size and weight
and numbers that he could call to his assistance. He was an insulter of
girls and women. He was a bar-room brawler, and a saloon-corner
loafer. He was all that was dirty, and mean, and contemptible, and
cowardly in the