The head fireman saw me on the deck, and came up to me. His whole manner had changed. His duty was over, the great ship was in the harbor, and he could afford to unbend a little.
"Not dressed yet to go ashore?" he said in a friendly manner, his eyes running hurriedly over my clothes. "We'll dock soon, and you want to be ready."
"These are all the shore clothes or any other kind that I've got," I replied, and for aught I could see just then they were all that I was going to have for some time to come.
"I'm too big, or you could have some of mine," the fireman assured me, the obvious sincerity of his offer making me quite forget the "swat" he had given me in the fire-room. We shook hands, congratulated each other on having done his part to help bring the ship into port, and then separated, five minutes and a kindly manner on the part of the fireman having been quite sufficient to scatter forever, I trust, all the murderous thoughts of revenge I had been a week and more storing up against him. Such has been the fate of nearly all of my revengeful intentions in life. Either they have consumed themselves with their own intense warmth, or a few words of reconciliation have cooled them down until they have become flabby and useless.
It was a very different line of coal-passers that marched from the Elbe to the Seemann's Amt in Bremerhaven to be paid off, from the one that had formed in front of the Hebrew's store in Hoboken. Our hard and miserable task was behind us, money was "in sight," and the majority of the men were at home again. We received seventeen marks and fifty pfennigs apiece for the trip, four dollars and a fraction in American currency. We bade one another good-by over some krugs of beer, and singly and in groups went our different ways. I waved a final adios to the Elbe, and joined two firemen, who spoke English and had offered to see me off for Berlin, my next destination.
I learned in their company something that life in sailor's quarters and homes later on has confirmed in every particular—i.e., seafaring men, when bidding one another good-by after a voyage together, should each take absolutely different directions on separating, eschewing all group gatherings and "one last drink" sociability. But one might as well preach theosophy to baboons, as to try to teach this doctrine to men who "go down to the sea in ships." Indeed, it is a thankless job to attempt to teach the latter anything until they have squandered a part of their money, only too frequently all of it, on a drunk. It was thus in Bremerhaven in my day, and I make no doubt that it is the same to-day wherever there are ports and paid-off seafaring men—in Calcutta, Singapore, 'Frisco, New York, or where you will. And why not? Is the coal-passer's life to be spent entirely in the bunkers? What is more natural than that when ashore he should try to forget some of the hard knocks, sweat and dust in the stoke-room, in a carousal in the open? What, indeed, has all the turmoil below been suffered for if not to allow such indulgence on land? The moralist, the economist, the Sabbatarian doubtless have their individual answers to these queries. All I know about the questions and my relation to them at the time of leaving the Elbe in Bremerhaven is that, my ticket for Berlin secured and two spare marks slyly hidden away in case of an emergency, prudence, temperance and economy were utterly disregarded. I sang, laughed and feasted with my friends to the limit of my financial and physical capacity, and I cannot recall having enjoyed a more righteous "good" time on a dollar and a half in all my life. So, hard though the voyage had been, I blessed the Elbe for the pleasure she had guided me to. Poor old ship! I was in Rome when she went down in the North Sea. I was reading the "bulletins" in front of the English book-store in the Piazza di Spagne. Suddenly my eyes spied the dispatch about the Elbe. "Down!" I muttered aloud, and people standing near looked at me as if, perhaps, I had lost a friend in the mishap. I had, indeed. In dire time of need, perhaps at the turning point in my life, one road leading I knew not where, the other, as it proved and as I hoped, to a home and decent living—on such an occasion—that creaking, tired out ship bore me safely out of trouble to a welcome port across the sea. If this is not friendship, if it be strange that I looked solemn and reminiscent in front of that bulletin board, then I know not what kind deeds and grateful remembrance thereof mean.
The journey to Berlin was a sorry undertaking. I started tired, my ticket read fourth-class, there were several confusing changes, and, for most of the journey, I was wedged in among a crowd of burly and scented Poles. Ordinarily, on a respectable train and with a third-class ticket, the journey from Bremen is about six hours. On my train it took close to sixteen, if not eighteen hours. A more humble home-coming could hardly be imagined, and I wasted no mental efforts in trying to increase the humility by imagining anything. At Celli there was some diversion in waiting an hour or two, and in listening to the gabble of a little Jewish tramp bound for Nürnberg. He had just come from America, he claimed, by way of England, having been boosted out of that country and across the North Sea by some alleged philanthropic agency, anxious apparently to relieve Great Britain of anything likely to increase the income tax. He was traveling afoot, and was full of the usual list of turnpike ghost-stories and "hand-outs." I told him some of my story to explain why I looked so dirty.
"They won't let you into Berlin," he declared, "looking like that. Can't you clean up some?" I tried once again, at a pump, to get rid of the steamer dust and grime, but this effort left no marked improvement in my appearance. Pretty soon the time for my train drew near, and then the little wanderer displayed himself in his true colors.
"You're'n American," he said, "so'm I. Can't you help me out a little—five cents'll do?"