Three junks, laden with American marines, dropping down the river from Pekin, cut across my abstracted gaze ... the boys were singing.
They marched off on the dock on which I sat. They were stationed right where they deployed from the junks. Men were put in guard over them.
At Tien Tsin they had behaved rather badly, I was told by one of them,—had gone on a Samshu jag ... a Chinese drink, worse than the worst American "rot-gut." ...
"Wisht I c'd git off the dock an' rustle up another drink somewheres."
"They wouldn't let us off this dock fer love nor money," spoke up a lithe, blue-shaven marine to me—the company's barber, I afterward learned him to be....
"Yah, we got ter stay here all afternoon, an' me t'roat's es dry es san'paper."
"Where are they taking you to, from here?"
"Manila!... the Indiana's waitin' out in th' bay fer us."
"—Wish I could get off with you!" I remarked.
"Wot's the matter? On th' bum here?"