Part 27 (1/2)
”Well, Mr Cheyne, and what d'you think of our city?--Yes, madam, you can sit anywhere you please--You have this kind of thing out West, I presume?”
”Yes, but we aren't as old as you”
”That's so, of course You ought to have been at the exercises e celebrated our two hundred and fiftieth birthday I tell you, Mr
Cheyne, the old city did herself credit”
”So I heard It pays, too What's the matter with the town that it don't have a first-class hotel, though?”
”Right over there to the left, Pedro Heaps o' room for you and your crowd--Why, that's what I tell 'e money in it, but I presume that don't affect you any What ant is--”
A heavy hand fell on his broadcloth shoulder, and the flushed skipper of a Portland coal-and-ice coaster spun him half round ”What in thunder do you fellows mean by clappin' the law on the tohen all decent men are at sea this way? Heh? Town's dry's a bone, an' sht ha' left us one saloon for soft drinks, anyway”
”Don't see, Carsen
I'll go into the politics of it later Sit down by the door and think over your arguuhteen dollars a case, and--” The skipper lurched into his seat as an organ-prelude silenced hian,” said the official proudly to Cheyne ”Cost us four thousand dollars, too We'll have to get back to high-licence next year to pay for it I wasn't going to let the ion at their convention Those are soht 'eain later, Mr Cheyne I'h, clear, and true, children's voices bore down the last noise of those settling into their places
”O all ye Works of the Lord, bless ye the Lord: praise hihout the hall leaned forward to look as the reiterated cadences filled the air Mrs Cheyne, with soined there were so many s in the world; and instinctively searched for Harvey He had found the ”We're Heres” at the back of the audience, and was standing, as by right, between Dan and Disko Uncle Salters, returned the night before with Penn, from Pamlico Sound, received hirunted ”What are you doin' here, young feller?”
”O ye Seas and Floods, bless ye the Lord: praise hiht?” said Dan ”He's bin there, same as the rest of us”
”Not in them clothes,” Salters snarled
”Shut your head, Salters,” said Disko ”Your bile's gone back on you
Stay right where ye are, Harve”
Then up and spoke the orator of the occasion, another pillar of thethe world welco out wherein Gloucester excelled the rest of the world Then he turned to the sea-wealth of the city, and spoke of the price that must be paid for the yearly harvest They would hear later the names of their lost dead--one hundred and seventeen of them (The s stared a little, and looked at one another here) Gloucester could not boast any overwhele as the sea gave; and they all knew that neither Georges nor the Banks were cow-pastures The utmost that folk ashore could accomplish was to help the s and the orphans; and after a few general re, in the name of the city, those who had so public-spiritedly consented to participate in the exercises of the occasion
”I jest despise the beggin' pieces in it,” growled Disko ”It don't give folk a fair notion of us”
”Ef folk won't be fore-handed an' put by when they've the chance,”
returned Salters, ”it stands in the nature o' things they hev to be 'sha feller Riches endureth but for a season, ef you scatter the--everything,” said Penn ”What can you do then?
Once I”--the watery blue eyes stared up and down, as looking for so to steady them--”once I read--in a book, I think--of a boat where every one was run down--except some one--and he said toin ”You read a little less an' take more int'rust in your vittles, and you'll co the fisheran in the back of his neck and ended at his boots He was cold, too, though it was a stifling day
”'That the actress fro at the platform ”You've fixed it about old man Ireson, hain't ye, Harve?
Ye knohy naow”
It was not ”Ireson's Ride” that the wo-port called Brixhaht, while the wo fire at the head of the quay with everything they could lay hands on