But—the sequel. I hate to mention it. I won't. It's absurdly commonplace. Commonplace? Not a bit of it. He was a champion, an artist in his specialty. How can I have used that word in connection with his incomparable performance? Or attempt to give a hint of life on the Canal Zone without mentioning the most conspicuous factor in it?
He lived in the next room south, a half-inch wooden partition reaching half-way to the ceiling between his pillow and mine. By day he lay on his back in the right hand seat of a locomotive cab with his hand on the throttle and the soles of his shoes on the boiler plate—he was just long enough to fit into that position without wrinkling. During the early evening he lay on his back in a stout Mission rocking-chair on the front porch of House 35, Empire, C.Z. And about 8 P. M. daily he retired within to lie on his back on a regulation I.C.C. metal cot—they are stoutly built—one pine half-inch from my own. Obviously twenty-four hours a day of such onerous occupation had left some slight effects on his figure. His shape was strikingly similar to that of a push-ball. Had he fallen down at the top of Ancon or Balboa hill it would have been an even bet whether he would have rolled down sidewise or endwise—if his general type of build and specifications will permit any such distinction.
When I first came upon him, reposing serenely in the porch rocking-chair on the cushion that upholstered his spinal column, I was pleased. Clearly he was no "rough-neck"—he couldn't have been and kept his figure. There was no question but that he was perfectly harmless; his stories ought to prove cheerful and laugh-provoking and kindly. His very presence seemed to promise to raise several degrees the merriment in that corner of House 85.
It did. Toward eight, as I have hinted, he transferred from rocking-chair to cot. He was not afflicted with troublesome nerves. At times he was an entire minute in falling asleep. Usually, however, his time was something under the half; and he slept with the innocent, undisturbed sleep of a babe for at least twelve unbroken hours, unless the necessity of getting across the "cut" to his engine absolutely prohibited. Just there was the trouble. His first gentle, slumberous breath sounded like a small boy sliding down the sheet-iron roof of 35. His second resembled a force of carpenters tearing out the half-grown partitions. His third—but mere words are an absurdity. At times the noises from his gorilla-like throat softened down till one merely fancied himself in the hog-corral of a Chicago stockyards; at others we prayed that we might at once be transferred there. A thousand times during the night we were certain he was on the very point of choking to death, and sat up in bed praying he wouldn't, and offering our month's salary to charity if he would; and through all our fatiguing anguish he snorted undisturbedly on. In House 35 he was known as "the Sloth." It was a gentle and kindly title.
There were a few inexperienced inmates who had not yet utterly given up hope. The long hours of the night were spent in solemn conference. Pounding on the walls with hammers, chairs, and shoe-heels was like singing a lullaby. One genius invented a species of foghorn which proved very effective—in waking up all Empire east of the tracks, except "the Sloth." Some took to dropping their heavier and more dispensable possessions over the partition. One memorable night a fellow-sufferer cast over a young dry-goods box which, bouncing from the snorer's figure to the floor, caused him to lose a beat—one; and the feat is still one of the proud memories of 35. On Sundays when all the rest of the world was up and shaved and breakfasted and off on the 8:39 of a brilliant, sunny day to Panama, "the Sloth" would be still imperturbably snorting and choking in the depths of his cot. And in the evening, as the train roamed back through the fresh cool jungle dusk and deposited us at Empire station, and we crossed the wooden bridge before the hotel and began to climb the graveled path behind, hoping against hope that we might find crape on that door, from the night ahead would break on our cars a sound as of a hippopotamus struggling wildly against going down for the third and last time.
Most annoying of all, "the Sloth" was not even a bona fide bachelor. He proudly announced that, though he was a model of marital virtue, he had not lived with his wife in many years. I never heard a man who knew him by night ask why. It was close upon criminal negligence on the part of the I.C.C. to overlook its opportunity in this matter. There were so many, many uninhabited hilltops on the Zone where a private Sloth-dwelling might have been slapped together from the remains of falling towns at Gatun end; near it a grandstand might even have been erected and admission charged. Or at least the daily climb to it would have helped to reduce a push-ball figure, and thereby have improved the general appearance of the Canal Zone force.
CHAPTER IV
One morning early in March "the boss" and I crossed the suspension bridge over the canal. A handcar and six husky negroes awaited us, and we were soon bumping away over temporary spurs through the jungle, to strike at length the "relocation" opposite the giant tree near Bas Obispo that marked the northern limit of our district.
The P.R.R., you will recall, has been operating across the Isthmus since 1855. When the United States took over the Zone in 1904 it built a new double-tracked line of five-foot gauge for nearly the whole forty-seven miles. Much of this, however, runs through territory soon to be covered by Gatun Lake, nearly all the rest of it is on the wrong side of the canal. An almost entirely new line, therefore, is being built through the virgin jungle on the South American side of the canal, which is to be the permanent line and is known in Zone parlance as the "relocation." This is forty-nine miles in length from Panama to Colon, and is single track only, as freight traffic especially is expected, very naturally, to be lighter after the canal is opened. Already that portion from the Chagres to the Atlantic had been put in use—on February fifteenth, to be exact; and the time was not far off when the section within our district—from Gamboa to Pedro Miguel—would also be in operation.