Part 4 (1/2)

”Precise, Tommy, precise.”

”Well, I don't put it together,” I says. ”I wouldn't feel like that for the satisfaction of drowning all Ferdinand Street. Why, poetical habits and habits of banging folks don't seem to me to fit. Why,” I says, ”a poet he's one thing, and a sc.r.a.pper he's another, ain't they? They don't agree. One of 'em feels bad about it, and takes to laments and requiems nights, same as malaria.”

”It's this way,” he says. ”Those are just two different ways of statin'

that things are interestin'. And yet, you're not far from the facts. It was a shoemaker in Portland, Maine,” he says, ”that taught me to chuck metres when I was a young one, and the shoemaker's son taught me to fight in the back yard, more because he was bigger than because he was interested in educatin' me. By-and-by I beat the shoemaker on metres and the son in the back yard, and then I left 'em, for they was no more use to me. But I never found anything else so much satisfaction as them two pursuits. But I'll go away, Tommy,” he says, ”I'll leave Portate.

I will, honest. I'll be good. I wish they'd quit puttin' temptations on me. But they won't. They're comin' out again! Look at 'em! They've borrowed the _Juanita_, and she's comin' with only the steersman in sight, and a cabin full of sojers that can't keep their bayonets inside of the windows. My! ain't they sly!”

He went to the companion way and called Irish, telling him to ”start her up.”

The _Juanita_ was one of the Transport Company's tugs. She appeared to be engaged in a stratagem. She pa.s.sed the _Harvest Moon_, then swung around and came up, on the other side. The _Harvest Moon_ made no effort to escape her anchorage, though the engine below began thumping busily.

Sadler went aft, dragging the long black hose, and sat on the rail till the _Juanita_ drew in to forty feet away, and through the deckhouse windows you could see the tufted caps of the suppressed soldiery. Then he let a steaming arch out of the hose pipe, that vaulted the distance and soaked the steersman, who howled and lay down. Then the _Juanita_ ploughed on, and Sadler played his hose, as she pa.s.sed, through the windows of the deck house, where there were crashes and other noises, and Irish's engine kept on chug-chugging in the chest of the _Harvest Moon_. The _Juanita_ went out of reach, and the soldiery poured out on deck disorderly and furious, and Sadler pulled me flat beside him, supposing they might open a volley of musketry on us, but they didn't.

Then he got up. ”They give me the colic,” he says, and Irish put his head up the companion way, and says: ”The wather was too hot,” he says and blew his fingers, and Sadler gave a groan.

”There's my luck!” he says. ”I meant to tell Irish to take the boil off and forgot it. Now their skins'll peel. You go away, Tommy. You go ash.o.r.e. You can't do me no good.”

He looked sheepish and troubled. When I pulled away, he sat staring down, with his back turned, his boots dangling over the water, and his shoulders bent. He certainly felt bad.

The Superintendent of the Transport Company was named Dorcas, a bustling, heavy-bearded man that you couldn't hold still and that talked fast and jerky like a piston rod.

I met him in the Plaza next morning going into the City Hall.

”Come on,” he says. ”We'll fix it. What? Jefe was stuck. Come to me.

Now then. Got an idea. Suit him first-rate. You see. Struck me this morning,” says Dorcas. ”Suit everybody.”

We came to the Mayor's office, and found Sadler, sitting alone by the window and looking moodily down on the Plaza, where the chain gang from the City Jail was pretending to mend the pavement, but mostly loafing and quarrelling.

”Got him!” said Dorcas joyfully. ”Thumped up the Jefe. First he cussed, then he calmed. That's his way. Be up pretty soon. Hold on! Wait for the Jefe.”

Sadler nodded, and we sat and watched the chain gang, till the Mayor came in out of breath. He was a small, stout man with a military goatee, and his temper was such as kept the resident consuls happy with their diplomacy. He snorted at Sadler, and sat down.

”Now, Excellency,” Dorcas says, ”this way. Understand your position. All right. Reasonable. First, if Pete Hillary is Jamaican, he's no citizen of Portate. See? No good, anyway. No. British consul, he don't care, except for the principle. Not really. No. You want to pacify him, meaning his principle. That's so. Then that Hottentot Society. Got to fix them. Course you have. Don't want to disoblige honest voters of Ferdinand Street. No. Third; you got to celebrate the majesty of laws and munic.i.p.al guards. Good. Last; the Transport Company. We don't want the Kid to chew his thumbs in jail for wetting folks. Good land! No!

You want to satisfy us. Complicated, ain't it? But you're equal to it. You're a good one, Jefe. Sure. Now what's needed? Something bold.

Something skilful. We have it! Get him banished, Excellency. Get him banished. Executive Edict from the President. Big gun. Hottentots pleased and scared. Majesty of Great Britain pacified. Majesty of munic.i.p.al guards celebrated. Transport Company don't object. Everybody happy. There, now!”

He put his thumbs in the armholes of his vest, leaned back and beamed.

”Hum! You a.s.sist?” says the Mayor.

”We do.”

The Mayor gazed at him fierce for a minute, then he smiled and patted his knee.

”It is, perhaps, Senor Dorcas, not impossible.”

”There now, Kid! Fixed you.”

Sadler said nothing, but looked down at the chain gang below. The Plaza was full of people, women talking under the stiff palms, and men sitting on wicker chairs on the hotel piazza opposite. The butcher on the corner was chasing away a dog.

”It won't do,” says Sadler mournfully, at last. ”It's more interestin'