Adventure Magazine Cover — page 96: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

- PSF i Ped OT, 4 iy mY : . TENe 4d Py 4 - 7 ) rphAy i ect “ay ; 4}, swf Nyasa my ty Dt ty dts i ; x ¥ 7 ook iS a “rhre ty ‘ ; Re at aes a i ve a! ax bf f PUREE Heh es CT Smet RRR MITE EY ‘ yy i% . y ’ ne t f Riery LT? MG . © Jy es ysl “ , Sr tt BO CEE EY AVE RO pie Se res ’ oe. ‘Indicating angry astonishment. ~ trolled himself, however, and said in the pay us off then. climbed on deck they went up the ladder to the bridge at once and knocked at the screen door of the captain’s cabin. There was a light within, and they could see the little skipper with his coat off going over a pile of papers on his desk, his jaws work- ing away on, his cud of Copenhagen snuff. Absorbed, he called out, ‘‘Coom in,”’ then, after they had stepped inside he faced about and looked at them. A triumphant. smile twirked up the corners of his mustache. “Fell! I fuss expecting you two. Now you haf been plenty punished, I tink. I haf no grudge. You can haf your chobs back again, now dot you haf learned dot I don’t shtand for any moonkey-business on my ship. 3 Returning to his papers, he said over his shoulder: “Dot’s all. You may go.” Neither of the men budged. \ “Excuse me, cap ny began the Bos’ in his most apologetic tone, “we'd just like to ask ye one thing.” ~ ““Fell—fot iss it?” snapped the Swede and spur around in his chair to face them. “We'd loike to be paid off, if ye don’t moind. We want to settle here in Chiny fur a whoile; we loike it.” The skipper’s mustache rose to a height He con- persuasive manner one uses with children: “Fy—fy no, you don’t font to leave de ship now; you vould get only half-pay. You font to go back fid her again, not to shtay here. You don’t font I should pay you off now; uff course not. No, no.” “And whoy not?” The bosun’s voice —_ was hard. “‘Fell—fell, I haf not now enough money to pay you off.” Deck, unable to remain any longer silent, cut in accommodatingly: “That’s all right, cap’n, you can get the money tomorra an’ We don’t mind waitin’.” “But the ship sails before an hour now,” the skipper answered, both angry and uncomfortable. “Not if we don’t get our money. I tell you now, cap’n, that we don’t give a good -—— when this ship sails, but if you want to keep out of trouble with the law you'll pay us off, an’ you’ll do it as soon as you can, the sooner the better—for you.” | The little Swede rose from his chair gasp- ing with rage. The knowledge that they were right and he would be forced to hold Adventure | : ee ‘not kiddin’ you. the ship over, almost paralyzed his tongue. But he managed to snort: “Get out—¢et out. Tomorrow morning at half past eight, you shall haf your pay. Now go to —— out uff here!” The two men remained sternly silent until they were out of sight and hearing of the skipper; then the Bos’ answered Deck’s widening grin with a hearty dig in the ribs. “Pretty good fur a starter, hey? They’ll have to hand it to us, Deck, we done thot roight. If he only knew what was comin’. The little Squarehead was sore tonoight ; what wull he be whin mornin’ comes? A ragin’ lunatic, Oi’m tellin’ ye.” Deck cut sharply into the bosun’s exul- tant monologue: ‘Come on forred, Bos’, we gotta tell the gang they ain’t gonna * sail tonight. An’ remember, we don’t go tearin’ off ashore before we got that four to eight engine room watch to go with us. ———*with ’e oilers, but ‘we gotta have them two Spic firemen an’ that Finn water-tender. Once we get them guys drunk we can pull some show, an’ I’m Come on, Bos’,” called back Deck exuberantly, stumbling over tlie littered deck toward the fo’c’s’le scuttle. The unexpected news of another night in port created an invitation not to be dis- regarded by a crew that had parted lugubri- ously the night before from what they had supposed their last bottle. It was after half-past three the next morning when the cargo light on the bridge, shining down thickly through the Yangtze River mist, picked out the forms of two men herding five other very unsteady men about the foot of the ladder. One by one Bos’ and Deck assisted their charges safely to the deck where they placed them in a row on the edge of the small midships hatch. Seating himself beside the inseparable Spanish firemen, Joe and Pedro, the deck engineer began to discuss with them their respective merits as firemen of an oil-burner like the Faralon. According to him, it was said among the other firemen that if it came to a showdown, Pedro could always run his fires better and get up pressure in his starboard boiler more quickly, than Joe was ever able to do with the port. When Deck assured them that it was im- possible to believe such a thing, Pedro’s drunken pride overshadowed his brotherly love. ‘Datsa right—datsa righ’,” he boasted, EOPMIELOOOKS €O