"Get up, presto! We're all going, presto!" It was five o'clock on a cool October morning, and my friend, the little Italian, was tugging away at my jacket. "Get up, fratello," he persisted. "Mucha good news." The light was struggling in through the cobwebbed windows and doorway, and the Norwegian was wakefully sighing again. I sat up, rubbed my eyes, and stared wonderingly at the Italian.
"Where's your good news?" I yawned, and pulled on my jacket.
"Mucha—mucha," he went on. "Policeman, he dead. Eighteen firemen and passers put hatchet in his head right front here. Blood on the sidewalk. Firemen and passers are pinched. Ship—she call the Elbe—she sail nine o'clock. The old Jew, he got to ship us. No time to look 'roun'. Mucha good news, what?"
I was the first to tell the Hebrew of what had happened over night, emphasizing the necessity of finding coal-passers immediately and the fact that we were the handiest materials. What a change came over the man's face! Sleepy wrinkles, indolent eyes, jeweled hands, projecting paunch were started into wondrous animation.
"You sure?" he asked eagerly.
"Absolutely. The men are all arrested."
"Ah, ha!" and the jeweled hands rubbed each other appreciatively. "Very goot! Now comes your Gelegenhei—that is goot. I see about things quick," and he waddled over to the North German Lloyd docks to assure himself that the news was correct—that the Italian had not made a mistake on account of using some dime novels for a pillow the night before. Thirty-six dollars were his if he could find the requisite number of men—a good wage for his time and labor.
"Ya, ya," he chuckled, a half-hour later, when I saw him again. "This time you go, ganz sicher. You a very lucky boy. Tell the others to stick in the cellar; I must not lose them."
At eight o'clock he appeared among us to select the most serviceable looking men. Again the poor old Norwegian was counted out—"zu schwach," the Hebrew thundered in reply to the man's entreaties to be taken, and once more he slunk away to his corner, weeping. There were still others who failed to come up to the Hebrew's standard of fitness, but no case was so pitiful as that of the Norwegian.
Eighteen men, some expert firemen found elsewhere, and the rest green coal-passers like myself, were finally chosen, lined up in the street, counted for the twentieth time, it seemed, by the Hebrew's mathematical sons, and then marched in single file across the street and down the dock to the Elbe's gang-plank, where the ship's doctor awaited us. The stoke-room was so short-handed that the man was forced to accept all of us, something that he certainly would not have done had there been a larger collection of men to choose from. He smiled significantly when he let me pass, and I was reminded of what a saloonkeeper had said to me earlier in the morning. I had gone to his place for breakfast, and he asked me whether I was looking for a job. I said that I was, explaining how long we all had waited for opportunities to ship.