Considering the start he had made that morning, the Wildcat realized, with his seventh sandwich, that life isn't so bad if you manage to live through it. When he began the afternoon shift his ancient philosophy had returned, and to the clatter of the activity about him he contributed his rambling voice. Presently the words of his song recruited a few converts from the gang about him; and by four o'clock, with the freight moving faster than it had for many a day, the hollow spaces in the long pier were filled with the echoes that lifted from an intermittent chorus which proclaimed that
"I kin load a steamboat, load it full wid freight;
I kin load a steamboat when it's leavin' late.
Dat's de reason I'se as happy as a bee,
I don't botheh work, an' work don't botheh me."
Throughout the late hours of the afternoon the eyes of the foreman were on the Wildcat. "Hustlin' nigger. Make him a straw boss tomorrow if this keeps up."
2.
Honey Tone realized that rank imposes commensurate obligation before his Temple of Luck campaign had lived a week. Too much rank imposed too much obligation, and so the Swamic Church and the Faith Healing and the Palm Reading Magi and several other verbal branches of his project were discarded before the several deppity soopreem leaders got too soopreem to handle. The backbone of his income was at once the Temple Fund; and this important business demanded and received all of his energy except that demanded by his elaborate pictures of the New World African Colony in Brazil.
The Temple Fund, paying all investors a hundred per cent a week, was popular from the start. On the first dividend day Honey Tone made the grade without difficulty, and all subscriptions were repaid, together with a bonus of a like amount. Immediately after the ceremony of repayment was completed, the backwash of investment began to roll in, and by the evening the promoter counted more than a thousand dollars in his hip pocket treasury. On the next day a new group of subscribers to whom the news had been retailed milled about the doors of the temporary Temple for a chance to register and donate their investments. Honey Tone, operating in a rented house, herded the investors into a room where his voice could pulverize the sediment of reluctance which remained in his hearers' minds, leaving no dregs of doubt that might cloud the nectar of hope.
He donned a serious looking coat, long and black, and swept a broad yellow sash across his chest. On his head rested a Manchu mandarin cap purchased in Chinatown and revised with ornament suitable for the insignia of the Soopreemest. About his waist was the equator part of a Sam Brown belt, and from it dangled a Civil War cavalry sabre whose scabbard had suffered two coats of gilt paint, not quite dry. He retained his ordinary street shoes; life was a battle, and you never could tell when the bugles of fate might blow recall. Street shoes came in handy when there was any heavy running to be done.