“I’ll be there.”
“Put me down, too,” said Rio. “I need a good sleep.”
“Yeah!” snapped the agent. “This ain’t Frisco, nor Portland, where they bat their scabby brains out. Here, the Company takes these fink bastards from the ship by car and leaves ’em in town. The boys make a few clap joints, meet the transportation and are brought back to the ship.” The agent licked his lips, showing perfect teeth, shining and yellow. “It’s silk—till they sail under.” He bit a fingernail and turned to another man.
Rio was growling when he and Martin left the Hall.
“God damn the finks,” he said.
“That’s right,” agreed Martin. “They struck me midships once. They nearly sank me.”
“You know,” said Rio, angrily, “I like you. But for Christ’s sake, don’t give me your end of the sea! You’re about as salty as lard.”
Martin smiled.
“Yes, they nearly sank me,” he repeated. “The ship was listing fourteen degrees when the bos’n ran into the fo’c’sle in his dirty underwear. He danced the ise-odori with a bottle of Saki under one arm and an ordinary seaman under the other, on a deck that would have frozen grandmother’s mittens. Now Rio, do you figure yourself a deep water sailor? Because you’ve pulled in the log on a cold night and lashed barrels to a hatch with your butt to the wind—are you sure of the ocean?... Have you ever curled a sea egg around your elbow?—kissed a barracuda over black water?—raced a shark in a harbor full of battle-wagons dumping garbage, with your own boat forty feet away against the wind? Have you winked at a sea spider and made him shuffle backwards till his legs ruffled slow sand in your face?”