“The match was to be ten rounds of two minutes each. There was five dollars donated by an officer for the winner, and some powerful side-bets. But it was all over in one round. Eddie started by rushing in and giving the Turk a silly little tap on the nose. That seemed to get the Turk’s goat, for he went for Eddie like a cyclone, and rushed him all around the ring for maybe a minute. At the end of that he gave him a blow on the body that laid him flat on the deck. We all thought Eddie was gone for sure. The time-keeper had counted up to five before he come to life at all. Then he began to recover, very slow. At ‘seven’ he rolled over on his face. The Turk, reckoning that Eddie was too dopy to go on any more, just straddled around in the middle of the ring, looking up to the deck above for the officer that was donating the five bucks. But at ‘nine’ Eddie was on his feet again, like a streak. No one hardly saw him get up. All they did see was Eddie soak the Turk under the point of the jaw—which was well up in the air at the time. Coca-Kola fairly knocked a groan out of the deck when he struck it. It took them two hours to bring him round. Gee, but it was some soak! Some of the Machine Gun boys cut open Eddie’s glove after, because they suspicioned he might have a chunk of lead there. But there weren’t nothing there. No, sir! Nothing but Eddie’s little old punch!”
We are presented both to the victorious Eddie and the dethroned masticator of raw meat. The latter is inclined to be taciturn; but the former, true to national use and custom, is quite ready to be interviewed.
Yes, this is his first trip across, but he is not seasick, and does not expect to be. Reason; he has spent twelve years on the Great Lakes, and a man that can stand the up-and-down convulsions of, say, Lake Michigan during a winter storm, need not fear the spacious roll of the Atlantic.
“There’s a ten-thousand-ton ship has went down there before now,” says Eddie, referring apparently to Lake Michigan, “just because them twisty seas has sheered the heads clean off her bolts and opened her up. Kinder ripped her, I guess. Every October owners raises the pay of all hands on them ships fifteen per cent—raises it voluntary.”
“Why?”
“Because the whole bunch would quit if they didn’t!”
This does not sound like a very convincing example of the voluntary system; but the great are permitted to be inconsistent. Mr. Gillette, proceeding, considers that life on board this ship is tolerable, but the food monotonous. Another gentleman, chewing tobacco, now joins the symposium. He is introduced as Joe McCarthy, of Oklahoma.
“You said it!” he announces, referring apparently to the food question. “Especially the coffee. The stuff they serve on board this packet ain’t got no kick to it.”
He is reminded that he has passed out of the coffee belt, and that he is approaching a land of tea-drinkers.
“Tea or coffee,” he rejoins, with the dogged persistence of the professional grumbler, “it don’t make no difference to me. And another thing. This yer travelling by sea is a lonesome business. Give me a railroad! There you can look out of the window of the car and see folks waving their hands to you; and presents of candy at the deepo, and everything. While this”—he flings a disparaging glance over the heaving Atlantic—“this is all the same, all the time!”