"Jobe!" exclaimed the proprietor. "What jobe?" He put on his glasses and eyed the applicant up and down. "Ah-h-h! You wish—? ... What is here?" he bellowed, and fell back on his bar.
"I seek a place as billiard marker," said Angus Jones.
"Sagrada Familia! Pig spy of a monarchist!"
The Portuguese equivalent of bungstarter whiffed Angus Jones by an eyelash. The rafters shook. We had a start to the door, and needed it. Jones cleared the sill with the aid of a ponderous foot. In the driving hail of oaths and beer mugs we tore across the Praca. A little soldier in blue linen started up from, somewhere. Two others ran out of a doorway. A crippled beggar threw his crutch at us with a curse. Loungers, ragamuffins, street cars, joined the chase with clamorous glee as we turned up an alley. All Funchal joined in the chorus behind us.
"Va-se'mbora! Va-se'mbora!"
And so consigned we fled at last to safety among suburban gardens and burst panting through a cane brake.
I said nothing to Angus Jones. Comment was too obvious. Angus Jones said nothing to me. Comment was inadequate. But I made such amends as lay with me. At a little change house by the sugar fields I spent my one coin for a bottle of wine. The wink and gasp of Angus Jones as that flagrant vintage seared his throat ended the gentle jape as far as I was concerned. He knew more about Madeira now and he no longer condescended to me....
We regained the water front by a devious route and came down toward the quay among odorous fishing smacks and tangled nets. Hotter, more desolate than ever, lay that black griddle of the foreshore on which Angus Jones was now condemned to wander with me. Nothing moved along its pebbly waste but heat waves and boiling surf and hopping insects in clouds.
Off the jetty lay the Siamese tramp, still heaving in the ground swell, and we came down to the edge to stare across at her. As pariahs before a vision of paradise we stood and yearned toward that disreputable hulk.
They had almost finished with her cargo. At this moment they held a clumsy crate balanced over the side in a sling, seeking to lower it upon a shore boat about the size of a dinghy. The crew swarmed like furious ants, and a white officer in dirty ducks flailed amid the riot. As the chain swung we saw the crate was really a clumsy cage in which ramped a huge and tawny form.