"Is it me head?" asked Mike. "So is me fist. I met the spalpeen runnin' down the gangway when I'm runnin' up. 'Where ye goin' wid the trunk?' I says, and he swings it up and hits me over the head wid it, and I knocks his teeth out for him. Whin ye see luggage goin' off a ship after the Blue Peter's up, its a good rule ivery toime to grapple wid the man that's carrying it."
There was a rattle of heels again overhead, a fresh outcry; sounds of another scrimmage came down to them. For a moment it seemed Mike heard a call to battle; then he remembered his dignity.
"D'ye hear them?" he said. "D'ye hear them? A scrappin', disorderly crowd!"
CHAPTER V
Many of the men fell asleep, Scholar among them, exhausted by the strain of the day and evening. He dreamt that he was back again in a bunkhouse of Michigan, and came half-awake, thinking that the forest was afire, then realised where he was, in this Bedlam, and was crucified upon regret. If only he had not made that offer to stand treat! He moaned; it was an anguish to him, for he had not lived even his brief years without knowing kindliness when he met it; and these fellows, whatever their vocabularies, their moral code, their falls from it, their capacity to live up to it, had treated him kindly. He would like to begin all over again with them, to go back twelve hours in his life and theirs, and stroll towards them feeling the air again for the method of approach, outside the barrier at the end of The Saint Lawrence Shipping and Transport Company's shed. Tortured, he fell asleep again, and the next he knew was the sound of voices. Perhaps all had their dreams, or nightmares when that sound brought them from sleep proper into a state of half awake and half asleep.
"Well, wot do yer want ter see 'im for, any'ow?"
"He is here, is he? I want to see him."
"I say 'e's a-sleepin'! Any man as wants to see Scholard 'as got ter tell me wot 'e wants ter see 'im for!"
"It's none of your business—I want to see him. Is he there?"