“Why—er—yes, sir, that’s him,” I replied.
“Yes, I sent him away a week ago, to Rangoon as a consul passenger. But his was an especially sad case. I can’t spend money on every Tom, Dick, and Har—”
“Oh! I wasn’t askin’ that, sir,” I protested, closing the door behind me.
The Seamens’ Institute occupied the second story—and the roof—of a ramshackle building in Lall Bazaar street, just off Dalhousie square. Even about the foot of the stairway hovered a scent of squalor and compulsory piety. On the walls of the main room, huge placards, illuminated with texts from the tale of the prodigal son and the stains of tobacco juice, concealed the ravages which time and brawlers had wrought on the plaster. Magazines and books of the Sunday-school species littered chairs and shelves. Four sear-faced old Tars, grouped about a hunch-backed table, played checkers as if it were an imperative duty, and cursed only in an undertone. For the office door stood open. I entered and tendered my “chit” to the Irish manager.
“Ye’re welcome,” he asserted, as he inscribed my name in a huge volume; “but mind ye, this is a Methodist insteetootion and there’s to be no cuss-words on the primaces. An’ close the door be’ind ye.”
“The cuss-words ye’ve picked up,” growled a grizzled checker-player, when I had complied with the order, “ye must stow whilst ye’re here. But if ye want to learn some new wans, listen at yon keyhole when he’s workin’ his figyurs.”
My “chit” entitled me to three meals of forecastle fare a day, the privileges of Sunday-school literature and checkerboards, the use of a crippled cot, and the right to listen each evening to a two-hour sermon in the mission chapel. In the company that gathered around the mess-board at noon were few whose mother-tongue was other than my own. The British Isles were ably represented; there were wanderers from Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and even two from “the States.”
My compatriots were Chicago youths whose partnership seemed singularly appropriate—in India. For the one was named William Curry and the other Clarence Rice.
“D’y ’iver put yer two eyes on a betther combeenation thon thot to be floatin’ about this land uv sunburn an’ nakedness?” demanded my companion on the right. “Why, whin they two be on the beach they’d ’ave only to look wan anither in the face to git a full meal. An’ yit they’re after tellin’ us they’re goin’ to break it oop.”
“You bet we be!” ejaculated Rice, forcing an extraordinary mouthful into one cheek to give full play to his tongue. “This bunch don’t go pards no more in this man’s land!”