“I reckon you do, son. Samuel Green stands by his word to a finish. Now I've promised to keep you safe, and you can bet your last dollar I'm a-going to do it.”
His prisoner turned from the rail against which he was leaning to the captain. Pinpoints of light were gleaming in the big eyes.
“How much safer do you want me than this?”
Green expectorated at a chip in the water and shifted his quid. “You've got brains, son. No telling what you might try to do. But see here. You're no drunken beachcomber. I know a gentleman when I see one. Gimme your word you'll not try to skip out or send a message back to the States and I'll go easy on you. I'm so dashed kindhearted, I am, that—”
Jeff leaped to the rail, stood poised an instant, and dived into the blue Pacific.
“Well, I'll be,” Bully Green interrupted himself to roar an order to lower a boat.
CHAPTER 16
A young man left his father's house to see the world.
Everywhere he found busy human beings. Cities were rising
toward the skies, seas and plains were being lined with
traffic, school, mill and office hummed with life. He
wondered why men were so busy and what they were trying to
do.
He went to a railroad director and asked: “Why are you
building railroads?” “For profits,” was the answer. But a
laborer beckoned him aside and whispered: “No—we are making
the World one neighborhood. East is now next door to West,
and all peoples dwell in one continuing city.”
The young man went to the boss of a labor union. “Why,” he
asked, “do you spend your days breeding discontent and
leading strikes?” “Why?” repeated the leader fiercely, “that
the workers receive more pay for shorter hours.” “No,”
whispered a laborer, “we are teaching the World the sacred
value of human beings. We are learning how to be brotherly—
how to stand up for each other.—James Oppenheim.
UNDER STRANGE CIRCUMSTANCES THE REBEL MAKES HIS BOW TO POLITE SOCIETY. TAKING AN APPLE AS A TEXT, HE PREACHES ON THE RISE OF ADAM