Part 1 (1/2)

Last Words.

by Stephen Crane.

THE RELUCTANT VOYAGERS

CHAPTER I.

Two men sat by the sea waves.

”Well, I know I'm not handsome,” said one gloomily. He was poking holes in the sand with a discontented cane.

The companion was watching the waves play. He seemed overcome with perspiring discomfort as a man who is resolved to set another man right.

Suddenly his mouth turned into a straight line. ”To be sure you are not,” he cried vehemently. ”You look like thunder. I do not desire to be unpleasant, but I must a.s.sure you that your freckled skin continually reminds spectators of white wall paper with gilt roses on it. The top of your head looks like a little wooden plate. And your figure--heavens!”

For a time they were silent. They stared at the waves that purred near their feet like sleepy sea-kittens.

Finally the first man spoke.

”Well,” said he, defiantly, ”what of it?”

”What of it,” exploded the other. ”Why, it means that you'd look like blazes in a bathing-suit.”

They were again silent. The freckled man seemed ashamed. His tall companion glowered at the scenery.

”I am decided,” said the freckled man suddenly. He got boldly up from the sand and strode away. The tall man followed, walking sarcastically and glaring down at the round, resolute figure before him.

A bath-clerk was looking at the world with superior eyes through a hole in a board. To him the freckled man made application, waving his hands over his person in ill.u.s.tration of a snug fit. The bath-clerk thought profoundly. Eventually, he handed out a blue bundle with an air of having phenomenally solved the freckled man's dimensions.

The latter resumed his resolute stride.

”See here,” said the tall man, following him, ”I bet you've got a regular toga, you know. That fellow couldn't tell--”

”Yes, he could,” interrupted the freckled man, ”I saw correct mathematics in his eyes.”

”Well, supposin' he has missed your size. Supposin'--”

”Tom,” again interrupted the other, ”produce your proud clothes and we'll go in.”

The tall man swore bitterly. He went to one of a row of little wooden boxes and shut himself in it. His companion repaired to a similar box.

At first he felt like an opulent monk in a too-small cell, and he turned round two or three times to see if he could. He arrived finally into his bathing-dress. Immediately he dropped gasping upon a three-cornered bench. The suit fell in folds about his reclining form. There was silence, save for the caressing calls of the waves without.

Then he heard two shoes drop on the floor in one of the little coops. He began to clamour at the boards like a penitent at an unforgiving door.

”Tom,” called he, ”Tom--”

A voice of wrath, m.u.f.fled by cloth, came through the walls. ”You go t'

blazes!”