"Old pal, everything looks yellow to me, even the sun looks yellow—sort of faded. Does it look yellow to you?" he asked, blinking at the clear setting sun, and although his power to realize was at low ebb, he picked me out evidently as being different from the others. By that act he exercised a discrimination that predestined an exciting and almost unbelievable career.
"The sun looks all right to me," I told him, smiling up in sympathy.
"I guess it's me—it's terrible—but this is the last—I'm going to work now. Little Hiram is going to work for the balance of his life—I got to, that's all," he ended, with a dogged determination that I hoped would survive after he recovered from his unsettled and polluted condition. I steadied him a little when climbing the ladder from the tug to the ship, which attention he seemed to appreciate.
"Old pal, I must go to bed. If I don't I will die," said he as we went forward to the firemen's sleeping quarters. There he tumbled into a lower bunk, not stopping to remove even the cheap cap he wore. In an incredibly short time he was "dead to the world" and snoring at a lively clip.
Upon returning to the deck I heard a loud grunt from the Siren and at once the ship began to swing out into the stream, heading toward the Statue of Liberty and that great sea beyond the Narrows.
The captain still leaned over the bridge, taking stock of his nondescript crew of firemen that loitered about, forward. His bulk evidenced a growing appetite and his almond shaped eyes suggested the prenatal influence of a Chinaman. It was hard to understand how so much tallow and bone, in a florid lumpy skin, ever became master of a big ship. Such luggage as Hiram Strong, Jr. and I had brought aboard might have told him a story, but he didn't care; all he wanted was thirty-five human machines, capable of shoveling coal—in four-hour shifts—in a temperature of a hundred and twenty-five degrees. He knew that his ship was marked as a "hell," and that no fireman would ship for a second trip.
While standing beside the rail and studying the retreating outlines of Battery Park and its wonderful skyline, I was approached by the firemen's mess steward, who wore a dirty white jacket and apron.
"I don't suppose that young feller will want anything to eat?"
"No—I guess sleep is better now," I replied, interpreting in his round greasy face evident good-will.
"The firemen are eating and you had better go in," he said, but seemingly in no hurry for me to tear myself away. The tip seemed a good one, so I made an opening for a better acquaintance.