With a shuddering gasp at the enormity of my crime—or was it ghoulish glee at having sufficient evidence to have me drawn and quartered—I credit him with the latter sentiment—a human being who would keep two free-born American citizens standing in his presence—men whom he knew had been living steerage on his ship for nearly a week—with those chairs standing tantalizingly, invitingly empty—the wearer of all that gold braid, lolling luxuriously in an easy chair, filled with such viands as "New York" and I had seen coming through—I'll never believe that man would shudder at crime. Rather, I think he was gloating over my ignoble end, and devising ways of still more horrible torture—that's the kind of a man I think that captain was, and I'll bet on it.
But according to the rules he didn't dare pass sentence without giving me a hearing. While he was judge, jury and prosecuting attorney, he had to give me a chance to clear myself, so he asked me what answer I had to make to the charge.
"Well, captain," I said, "'Bee—'—I mean your chief of steerage, hasn't got the story straight. At an indignation meeting out on the well deck the other night, as he has insulted women on this voyage, after he had ordered the women below decks at what you call your curfew time, I voiced the sentiments of the male portion of your steerage passengers by advising that if any of them caught an officer of the ship insulting a woman, whether she was an immigrant or an American, no matter how many brass buttons or shoulder straps he wore, to knock him down; and if he was too big to handle with the fist, to use a club."
"Beef" jumped up and shook his fist at me and bellowed: "If Mr. Allen says I've insulted women, he's a liar."
Right here is where "New York" shone.
"I would like a word here, captain," he said. "Mr. Allen is stating facts. Your chief of steerage has insulted women on this voyage."
That "impartial" judge, that embellished emblem of authority, said he had known "Beef" for a good many years, and he knew he wouldn't do such a thing, so, according to "Beef" and the captain, "New York" and I were both liars.
"If Mr. Allen says I have insulted women, he's a liar"
Then that bedizened judge turned on "New York" and said: "You look like a clean-cut, up-standing man" (this last was the unkindest cut of all; it's a compliment to have some men call you a liar, but he needn't have used that word "up-standing"; Lord knows, "New York" didn't want to stand up)—"how do you explain your associating with such a person as this man Allen?"