Argosy All-Story Weekly, May 3, 1924 — page 28: what you’re looking at

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

818 tidewater craft—whispered to his uncom- fortable companion: ‘ Tell him, yes, he’s a liar! There’s another bird comin’ in at the front door which he looks like a mar- iner too. He’ll help us.” The big boatman stood up with a sudden attainment of bravery. “Yes, b’God, you ain’t only a liar, but you're a bunch of rottin’ kelp!” His companion had given exceedingly poor advice. To be sure there was a new arrival at the Sundown Café—a mariner judging from the leather visor on his salt- stained cap, the wide flaring trousers and canvas shoes. But long before this new guest had time to find what the argument was about, the fight was over. The lumbering tidewater sailor had picked up one of those worm-eaten chairs which Herzog maintained had come from the mission over in Agualegas. But no padres would ever sit down again in that antique for it splintered into a shower of pulp as it struck the back door of the dining room. The head it was intended for-—the big pomaded head of Al Bosco— had ducked. Boscoe’s fist lifted the sailor's chin like a maul knocking out a keel block preparatory to the launching of a ship. The sailor shivered from his little woolen cap to his canvas shoes and then settled comfortably on the ways. A table was overturned and the hulk dropped into the mass of cards, sawdust, tobacco cuds and fluttering pigeons. But the group there in Herzog’s café did not seem to be as much concerned over the fail of the tidewater sailor as they were with the entrance of that new guest. In that den frequented by Portuguese, Filipinos, Cajans and Mexicans it was not often that a stranger attracted much atten- tion—unless of course it happened to be some quadroon woman or Creole *‘mademoi- selle. This fellow, however, was possessed of a certain air. He was quite tall, with sea faded hair extending down about his clean cut temples in sideburns. Old Herzog gasned aloud. He under- stood that air, or rather gave it his own peculiar interpretation. The man had come to shore after many days of hardship, storm and shipwreck. ‘“ The devil himself—Old ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. Horny—has come from the sea. I’m damned! I’m lost! There’s no help for us now. I know them green eyes.” It was a handsome face in its way even though it had that Mephistophelian cast, the prominent cheek bones, the slanting eyebrows, the aquiline nose with which ar- tists delineate the devil. But was perhaps the costume of the man that gripped old Herzog’s imagination more than anything else. He was obviously a mariner: his skull cap with the black leather visor, his pea-jacket, his wide flaring trousers legs, his shoes rotted with sea water and his peculiar manner of standing as if he were on a deck that was dipping to a deep swell,—these details were unmistakable. The newcomer looked down at the pile of inert and tatooed flesh, and he saw that it was a sailor. He heard the call which comes to mariners to stand up for each other against all landsmen in general and against keepers of sailors’ dives in particular. “That was a powerful blow, my good man. A ripping strong insult must have called for that.” Boscoe’s eyes bulged in surprise. Was it possible any man dared to address him in that gentleman’s lingo, to call him to account for doing his duty? there gaped. Even the fallen body of the first man Boscoe had knocked out, the Cajan shrimper, sat up in the middle of the floor smiling blandly and attempting vainly to focus his eyes on a small cloud of gnats hovering at arm’s length before him. Cora, with a woman’s prescience, realized that there was a threat of nothing less than murder couched in the mild remark. And as for old Herzog he was the most terrified man in that room. Drunk patrons had never troubled his peace of mind to a great extent. But when a man came in with sea green eyes and with the air of standing with legs apart as if in a storm, then the little innkeeper prayed for his soul. And he also prayed that A! Boscoe would do his duty. Boscoe, it must be admitted, held his own, at least for a moment. - “1 am the bouncer,” he said. “TI didn’t like the lubber’s looks.” “T daresay! But what was the insult?” the stranger asked again softly. COmMiCcoool Everyone (©