"Yes, I'm Campbell. And I'm Cogan. And I'm Kieran, pump-man on this wall-sided oil-tanker at fifty-five per month."
"But why?"
"Why, why?" He sat up. The passenger could see the thick, dark eyebrows draw together. "Why? Why anything? What would you do?"
"Forget it."
"Forget it. But can you?—everything? No—you betcher you can't. And it's every man to his own cure. Some I know get drunk and fight. And some I know who get drunk and cry. Some worry their friends to death, and some others beat their wives. Every man to his way. I have no wife"—he laughed softly—"and I want to keep my friends. So I run my heart out in races and beat up bully bosons, and fight bulls—when I can."
"But when you can't?"
"When I can't? Why, when I can't, I lay out on the fo'c's'le head and bay up at a two-horned moon."
[pg 336]
The passenger turned and looked down. "Thank your God, Kieran," he said, "you can laugh when you say that."