"There, there, poor 'ittle Jasper! Let him come to his muvverums and have his 'ittle cry."
But I had to turn my back on him. There was no help for it. I understood, however, that people in his class were less sensitive to discourtesy than those in mine. They were used to it. True, he was blind; but then it was not to be expected that I should look after every blind man I happened to run against in traveling. Besides all this, I had made up my mind what I meant to do, and refused to discuss it further even with myself.
He was hoisting himself to the upper bunk when he made a second attempt to draw me.
"You'll have people to meet you to-morrow morning?"
"Oh, I suppose so," I grunted, sleepily. "Some of 'em will be there." A second or two having passed, I felt it necessary to add, "Same with you, I suppose?"
He replied from overhead. "Sure! Two or three of the guys 'll be jazzing round the dock. There'll be—a—Jack—and—a—Jim—and—a—well, a pile of 'em." He was snuggling down into his pillow as he wound up with a hearty, "Say, Jasper, I'll be—I'll be all right—I'll be fine."
Deciding that I wouldn't call this bluff, I turned and went to sleep. Up with dawn, I slipped out of the cabin before the blind man had stirred. Early rising got its reward in a morning of silver tissue. Silver tissue was flung over the Bay, woven into the air, and formed all we could see of the sky. Taking my place as far toward the bow as I could get, I watched till two straight lines forming a right angle appeared against the mist, after which, magical, pearly, spiritual, white in whiteness, tower in cloud, the great city began to show itself through the haze, like something born of the Holy Ghost.
Having nothing to carry but my bag and suitcase, I was almost the first on shore. So, too, I must have been the first of the passengers ready to leave the dock. But two things detained me, just as I was going to take my departure.
The first was fear. It came without warning—a fear of solitude, of the city, of the danger of arrest, of the first steps to be taken. I was like a sick man who hasn't realized how weak he is till getting out of bed. I had picked up my bags after the custom-house officer had passed them, to walk out of the pen under the letter S, when the thought of what I was facing suddenly appalled me. Dropping my load to the dusty floor, I sank on the nearest trunk.
I have read in some English book of reminiscences the confession of dread on the part of a man released after fifteen years' imprisonment on first going into the streets. The crowds, the horses, the drays, the motors, the clamor and gang, struck him as horrific. For joining the blatant, hideous procession already moving from the dock I was no more equipped than Minerva would have been on the day when she sprang, full-grown and fully armed, from her father's head.