that night in the forec's'le tom was telling them how he got the word of the jeffries-johnson fight.
"i sights her smoke to the west'ard, the sun just risin'. but it came to me that mebbe a great steamer like her wouldn't like it to be held up by a couple o' grand bank trawlers in a dory, an' i mentions that to jack there, but jack says: 'you know how they all want to know aboard the vessel, 'specially the cook.'"
the cook looked up to say dejectedly: "i'd ha' forgiven you."
"jack handed me his oil jacket for a signal o' distress, an' i lashes it to the blade of an oar an' lashes th' oar to a for'ard thwart an' sits down an' waits.
"along she comes, an' she cert'nly was the grand sight comin'. the len'th an' height of her, and a wave to her bow an' stern would swamp a dory! an' her bridge! miles away 'twas high as some flyin' thing. on she comes a-roarin'—twenty-six knots, no less. an' almost atop of us she stops. an' i looks up at her, an' a gold-braided lad in blue he leans over the side rail o' th' bridge an' he says: 'what's wrong with you chaps?'
"an' i looks up an' says: 'who won?'
"an' he says: 'what d'y'mean—who won?'
"an' i says: 'god, man! where you been the last few days ashore? who won th' fight?'
"a couple other gold-braided lads 'd joined the first, an' behind them four or five rail-polishers was bobbin' up an' down. an' then came a fat-whiskered lad an' bustles all the others out o' his way, an' one o' the others hands him a little megaphone, an' he leans over the rail an' he says: 'you yankee beggars, do i understand that you're holdin' up a ship of our class, and we, bearin' the roy'l mails, to ask who won a bloody prize-fight?'
"an' i says: 'ferget y'ur class an' y'ur roy'l mails—who won th' fight?'
"there was a couple o' hundred o' passengers mebbe by this time along the top rail—men an' women, in night-dresses an' bath-robes the women, the men in chinese trousers they looked like to me. an' a lad in a blue one of 'em he sings out: 'there's sporting blood for you!' an' he grabs another lad in a pink one an' says: 'look—those two down there want to know who won the fight'; an' then sings out to us: 'say, you're all right, you two?' an' just then the whiskered one on the bridge, he sings out—what was it he said, jack?"
jack quoted: "'will the first-cabin passengers understand that i am thoroughly capable of carrying on all the necessary conversation with these people in regard to this matter?'"
"an' i was gettin' mad, an' i says: 'to blazes with y'ur nessary conversation, you pot-bellied loafer—who won th' fight?' an' at that the passenger that'd first butted in he makes a megaphone of his hands an' he sings out: 'johnson!'
"'johnson?' i says—'johnson?' an' reaches back to find somethin' t' heave at him. i was goin' to heave a cod at him, but jack says: 'don't waste that on him,' an' digs me out an old gray hake, an' i holds it by the tail an' i says: 'say, you, you in the blue chinese trousers, who'd you say won?' an' he says: 'why, johnson.'
"'you glue-eyed squid!' i says, an' scales th' old hake up at him, an' he dodges, but his chum in pink he didn't have time an' it ketches him fair, an' 'what in thunder's that thing!' he yells, an' takes to hoppin' up an' down an' wipin' the hake scales off his chin.
"an' the lad in blue sings out: 'say, you, you oughter be in a big league with that arm o' yours,' an' he rushes inside the house an' comes out with a bunch of papers twisted together an' throws 'em over the side, an' jack an' me we picks 'em up an' smooths 'em out on a thwart, an' there 'twas in letters six inches high—black letters, too—'johnson wins!' an' that's them the cook's readin' to himself now."
tom stopped, and he who was called professor said: "no doubt you would have wagered all you possessed if you had been home instead of out here."
"i wouldn't 'a' minded that. but jeffries licked by a nigger! what's the white race comin' to? say—say, but i wisht good old john l. in his prime'd been there to reno—or dan magee."
there were two, both of course new to the vessel, who before this night had never heard of dan magee. one being from fortune bay, tom was expecting no better of him; but the other (and he called professor because of his book learning), and living in boston, in boston where they used to nourish champion fighters!
"but there is no record of a dan magee who was a heavyweight champion," argued professor.
"a good thing for a lot of 'em there ain't," snapped tom. "johnson!!—johnson!—johnson——"
"i bet twenty to fifteen on jeffries before we left gloucester." this was from the cook, who, having read all about the fight, was now mixing a pan of bread, with his sad eyes directed to a deck beam. "yes, twenty to— c?sar zippicus!" he brought his fist down bff! in the lump of dough. "and i left ten more—i just remember—with billy mills to bet for me at the same odds."
professor, lying in a lower bunk, took the trouble to roll over and say: "and why did you do that?"
"why? why?" the cook glared at the lower bunk. "you people— caesar zippicus!" and, raising the bread pan high above his head, he brought it down smash atop of the galley-locker. whang!
the cook looked ashamed. "i just remember i left another twenty with jerry mccarty to place on jeffries, too," he explained.
"never mind, cook," said tom, "you wouldn't 'a' lost nothing if it'd been dan magee."
"to blazes with you and dan magee!" whooped the cook.
"and that's what i says, too, cook." this was from fortune bay. "i been hearin' more o' dan magee this night! it's dan magee this an' dan magee that. and what did ever the man do?"
"do?" tom held a reverential hand high. "a book wouldn't tell th' half dan did. where's jack?"
"gone for'ard."
"too bad—if jack ferris wasn't aft playin' cribbage with the skipper in the cabin, you'd hear a few things more of dan magee. but he'll be for'ard by'n'by for his turnin'-in mug-up, an' then——"
and by and by jack came. "they're castin' doubt on dan magee," declared tom to his dorymate. "tell him about the time he licked th' seven p'licemen in saint johns or about that time in soorey."
jack glanced at the clock.
"there might be time for the soorey fight. we were chasing mackerel," said ferris, "on the cape shore this time, and a lively southeaster coming on one day, the skipper said he guessed he'd run into soorey to let it blow by. and as we'd been up three nights owling, after we dropped anchor all hands turned in for a good sleep.
"late in the afternoon somebody sings out, 'supper!' and i woke up. looking across the cabin, i saw dan awake, too, sitting on the locker, with his slipshods to one side and his rubber boots to the other. he was casting an eye now to one and now to the other, when he looks up and sees me. 'what d'y'say, jackie boy?' says dan. 'will we slide into our slipshods and go for'ard for supper, or will we haul on our rubber boots and go ashore and eat like a pair of tourists and look the place over? what d'y'say?'
"we hadn't much of a cook that summer. he'd come off a yacht and was everlastingly making potted mackerel, which he could make good; but a pity nobody'd ever told him fishermen don't go ketching fish to be always eating 'em. and so i said: 'me for ashore.'
"so we got into our rubber boots, hoist a dory over the side, and we're shoving off when the skipper, who we thought we'd left asleep, sticks his head up the cabin companionway and sings out: 'where you two bound?'
"'we thought,' says dan, 'we'd be rowing a few miles out to sea and back by way of limbering up our slack muscles.'
"'there's some people i expect'd bust wide open if they wasn't allowed to be smart,' says captain john. 'i don' know but what i'll go ashore with you,' and he threw a mug of coffee into himself and jumps in and we start off.
"suddenly dan stops rowing. 'isn't this september?' says dan, and the skipper says yes. 'and a monday?' asks dan, and the skipper stops and thinks for a moment and says yes it was. 'and the first monday?' asks dan. 'yes,' says the skipper, 'but what in tarnation of it?' 'nothing,' says dan, 'only that if we were home it would be labor day.' and the skipper says: 'well, what o' that?' 'nothing,' says dan, 'only it'd be a holiday and all hands celebrating if we were to anchor in some port ashore.'
"'but labor day ain't no holiday in this country,' says the skipper.
"'no,' says dan, 'but we c'n make a holiday of it.'
"'i don' know about that,' says the skipper. 'if it moderates at all, i cal'late to be pullin' out by daybreak.'
"'sure, and we c'n have a celebration that'll reverber-r-ate in history by then,' says dan.
"now, dan was a great reader. he'd lie in his bunk of a night when he had no watch to stand and he'd read the morning up sometimes, and now when he starts rowing again he starts talking about things he'd read.
"'i used to read about the holidays that some countries have,' says dan, 'but i never believed it till i was in a vessel running salt fish to cadiz one time. and the ship-loads o' salt fish they consume in that country, 'twould amaze you. but one night layin' in cadiz harbor a big whale of a steamer cut into us, and all the topside planking she left of us to starb'd not even this new cook of ours—and god knows he's savin' enough of the raw material!—he couldn't have started a galley fire with it. we had to run her up on the railway and calk her, and after that 'twas the carpenters—nine weeks in all—and 'twas great opportunities we had to study the customs of the country. and there was a country for you! every once in a quick while a holiday. and the days they did work no one breaking his neck to get the work done. 'twas proof to me they must be people o' genius to get ahead at all. but then they do say the people that does the least work has the most genius, the most imagination; and imagination, they say, is the first qualification of genius, and too much work it kills the imagination. what d'y'think o' that doctrine, skipper?' says dan.
"'i don't know nothing about imagination,' says the skipper, 'but i alwuz notices that them that does the least work c'n get off the most hot air.'
"just then we bump into the dock, where the skipper, without even waiting to see the painter made fast, hurries up toward the street.
"'there he goes,' says dan, 'lookin' for—what they call 'em, now?—affinities. and if he only had a little taste in the matter! there's people, they say, that all vessels look alike to—sharp-built and round-bowed, light-sparred and heavy. and he's that way with women. one looks just like any other to him. the gray-headed old rat, he has sons as old as me or you at home, jack, and there's the widow simmons in gloucester with two lodging-houses at the head o' the harbor. he's courting her, too.'
"'from what i hear, dan,' says i, 'the widow is able for him.'
"at the head of the dock was a lobster factory with a pile of cooked lobsters under a shed half as high as our masthead. 'here's our supper, boy,' says dan, and we go up to a man and ask how much for lobsters, and he says: 'help yourselves for fifty cents a dozen.' and we help ourselves. i had one dozen and dan two. 'and couldn't we get a little drop o' something to follow after these red gentry?' asks dan, and the man calls a boy, and dan gives the boy a five-dollar bill, and when the boy comes back with a dozen pint bottles of english ale, he tells him to keep the change, the ale looked so good to him.
"he had nine bottles and i had three, and 'that's what i call a decent little lunch,' says dan, 'and it begins to feel more like a holiday; and how is it with you, jackie boy?'
"i said i felt better, too, and we headed for the main street. by the time we got to the top of the hill—we'd hove-to here and there along the way, of course, with a little sociable drink in each to leave a good name behind us—and by now dan said he could feel his side-lights burning bright; and as he said it we came abreast of a place with a window all of red glass, to port, and another, all green glass, to starboard. and over the door, shining out from a square box of a lantern, was the sign 'snug harbor!'
"hard-a-lee!' says dan, and we tacked across the street and fetched up all-standing in front of the door. 'it's a great thing, isn't it, boy, to have a vessel that answers her helm?' says dan, and leads the way in.
"the first room had a bar running the length of it. gay times were going on in back somewhere, but, of course, we had to stop and buy a drink or two here by way of showing our good intentions. there was one man behind the bar; but before we could order, another fellow leaves a group near the window and goes behind, too. 'what's your name, mate?' says this one to dan.
"'i'm dan magee o' skibbaree,' says dan, and leaps a yard into the air and knocks his heels together, and when he comes down pulls a bill from his roll and throws it on the bar.
"'i thought so. i'm from skibbaree myself. i knew your father.'
"'then you're from a place i never heard of before this last minute,' says dan. 'but if you did know my father you knew a good man, a better man than ever you were—or will be,' says dan, 'and if you want to dispute it 'tis his son will prove it to you. and if you think you can come any of your come-all-ye's over me, you're mistaken. i'll be thanking you for the change of that ten-dollar bill,' says dan.
"'a ten-dollar bill?' says the bartender, and opens one hand and says: 'why, no—see—a dollar bill.'
"'you don't tell me now!' says dan, and reaches over and with a twist of his fingers opens the bartender's other hand, and there was the ten-dollar bill. and he takes it and tucks it away, and doing that he lets him have another look at the roll of bills he had with him.
"'my private opinion of you,' says dan, 'i'd hate publicly to express it, 'specially in the presence of these honorable gentlemen here,' and he points to the four or five hard-looking tickets, who had left the window and were now crowding up close. 'but you don't want to be making the mistake of thinking because a man rolls a bit in the wind that he's carrying more sail than he ought. i've seen 'em, lad, with their hatches under; but let your wheel fly and up they'd come like a spinning top. it's the ballast, lad, they have—the ballast—and don't make any mistake—if i feel like swinging all i got, the ballast's there to hold me up to it,' and with that he turns and drives his foot through the swinging-doors and into the next room with almost a flying leap. i stops to pay for the drinks and then follows dan; but before i got through i heard one of the loafers say: 'and did you see that wild man's pile?' and i says to myself: 'if we get out of here alive, we're lucky.'
"the other room was a big room with sand on the floor, a bar and a barmaid to one side, and a counter to the other with a man behind it opening oysters. there were small tables at one end and men and women sitting to them drinking. the men were mostly seafaring hoboes, foolish lumpers, and deck-swabs—from off steamers, most likely. there was a man to the bar, and i didn't see who he was at first, he being almost hid between a big-bellied stove; but dan spotted him right away. 'will you look at our bold skipper!' whispers dan—'and his wife not buried a year yet.' i takes another look and sees that so it was, and that he was talking a fourteen-knot clip to the barmaid.
"'good evening, captain,' says dan. the skipper turns, screws up his face, says 'howdy' at last, and turns to the barmaid again.
"'we were for passing on to the next room, where the dancing and piano-playing were; but there'd been the noise from the room we'd just left of a bunch of men coming in off the street and stopping just long enough for a round of drinks, and now they were coming through the swinging doors; and 'did you see 'm hit 'm that last one?' one was saying, and 'two rounds,' says another—'not enough to exercise alf.'
"in front of the crowd was a whale of a fellow in a red sweater and a little cap atop of his head, and beside him was our short-change bartender friend and behind him a dozen men, among 'em the same half a dozen tough lads we'd already seen out front before.
"the big prize-fighter swings himself across the floor as if nobody else was living just then except to wait on him. 'a mug of your best, daisy dear,' he says to the barmaid; and, hearing that, the skipper whips around with a sour face, but he takes another look at the bruiser and whips back again.
"we could see the couples floating by the glass doors opening into the next room, and that's where dan and myself were bound, and where we'd have got to, only the bartender's voice stops us. 'say, you,' he calls out, 'how'd you like to put the gloves on and have a go with little alf here?' dan didn't stop. and 'you!' yells the bartender—'i mean you, you big gloucesterm'n!'
"dan turned then. 'what's that?'
"'how'd you like to put on the gloves with alf here? there's a nice little bit of a ring across the way.' the big fellow himself wasn't even looking at dan. he was elbowing the skipper to one side to get closer to the barmaid. the skipper was looking riled.
"'why should i?' asks dan. 'i've no quarrel with him.'
"'no, you big stiff; but if it was me, you would. you're dan magee of skibbaree, are you? why don't you leap into the air now and knock your heels together and say that to alf? or does his being the soorey giant make a difference?'
"'hang you and your soorey giants!' says dan.
"'alf! alf! did y' hear 'im?' hollers the bartender. and at that a man, a fair-sized man, too, jumps into the middle of the floor and says: 'don't you ago botherin' wi' him, alfie—i'll take care of 'im.' he has a red sweater, too, and a little cap at the top of his head, and he takes a couple of fancy steps and spars with his hands, and by and by steps in and gives dan a poke. and dan he squints down at this lad and says, 'what's ailing you, man?' and the boxing chap he dashes in and pokes dan again, and everybody laughs. but before they were done laughing, dan, who'd never had a boxing-glove on in his life, he slaps out with his left paw and ketches the fancy boxer one on the side of his chin, and he doesn't stop falling backward till he fetches up between our skipper and the soorey giant.
"'alf!' he gasps, and the soorey giant looks around to see who did it, and he spots dan. 'ho, ho!' he says—'ho!' and they all push back their chairs and tables to give him room. and he keeps looking at dan and then steps into the clear space and fiddles around and measures his distance and lets go, and it ketches dan fair on the chest and sends him back half a dozen feet. and as he does that somebody hits me one behind the ear and down i go. and somebody else said, 'he's one of 'em, too,' and reaches for the skipper, and down he comes, too, and the pair of us stay over to the corner where they'd knocked us and look on.
"the big fellow dances away and shapes up for dan again. he reaches for dan and ketches him fair again on the chest, and back goes dan and begins to look foolish, and they all laugh and cheer, the women too, and of the women the bar-maid loudest of all. and 'he's dan magee o' skibbaree!' says our old friend the bartender, and you couldn't hear a word then for laughing. and at that dan springs a yard into the air and lets a roar out of him. 'yes,' says he, 'i'm dan magee o' skibbaree!' and comes charging across the floor. the big fellow sets himself, and when he gets dan right he lets go. it was like hitting the big bass drum in a parade when he lands on dan's chest. but this time dan was coming full tilt, and he keeps on coming and makes a swipe with his left paw, and down goes mr. soorey giant. but he jumps up and comes on, bellowing, and he swings, and dan lets him swing while he reaches out himself and grabs him and whirls him around, and keeps whirling and turning with him till the soorey champion's feet leave the floor, and then dan lets him go and he fetches up against the door leading into the dance-hall. 'yes,' says dan, 'i'm dan magee o' skibbaree,' and leaps a yard into the air and knocks his heels together, and grabs the big-bellied stove near the bar. there was no fire in it, but it was busting with ashes. five feet high it was, maybe, and three feet through the middle. 'fair helen,' says dan, 'i'm thinking you'd better be fleeing the plains o' windy troy,' and the barmaid ran screaming away, and in her place behind the bar dan drops the stove. 'hurroo!' yells dan, and spying a barrel full of oyster-shells, he picks it up and capsizes it on the head of the man behind the counter, who'd been yelling, 'knock his head off, alf!' at the top of his voice a minute before. and then dan wades into the eight or ten real tough ones who had got after the skipper and me in a corner and were pelting us good, and he pulls them off, two or three at a time, not trying to hurt anybody, but tossing 'em right and left ten or a dozen feet away, just as they happened to come to his hand. the air was full of flying people, when the bartender came hurrying back with a mob of what looked like brass-polishers and deck-swabs from the dance-hall. dan sees him, and 'oh, there you are?' he says, and upsets him and grabs him by his ankles, and starts to swinging him like he was a sixteen-pound hammer, and when he has him going good he lets him go altogether. into the crowd he'd been leading from the dance-hall he went, and those that weren't knocked over flew back to where they'd come from.
"'hurroo!' says dan, and throws a few chairs and tables at the mirrors and glasses and bottled goods behind the bar. 'hurroo!' he yells, and turns and grabs the nearest man to him, whirls him back-to, grips him under the arms, jumps through the swinging-doors, and makes for the street. but the street door was locked. he spots the window with the all-red glass. 'hurroo!' yells dan, 'here will soon be a ship with her port light carried away,' and throws his man through the red window and jumps through after him. 'follow me!' yells dan, and down the hill he went with seven-league strides. and the skipper and me after him, and not a slack till we made the dock and jumped into the dory.
"the skipper rolled into the stern of the dory, and there he lay. dan rowed out to the vessel—i was too tired—and on the way out he half whispers: 'what d'y'think of him, jackie, that would take up with a woman of that kind and a buxom creature like the widow simmons, with two houses clear of all debt in gloucester, witherin' away for love of him?'
"the skipper never let on he was alive until we were alongside the vessel, and then it was all hands on deck and weigh anchor and make sail and drive her. but never a word of what had happened until soorey harbor was many a mile behind. and then—the middle of the afternoon it was and the tubal running off before a good breeze—the skipper sidles up to dan and says: 'dannie, you sure they ain't no incumbrances on the two houses o' the widder?' and dan says: 'isn't it my own sister's husband's nephew is her lawyer?'"
at this point ferris came to a full pause.
"and what became of the marvellous magee?" asked professor.
"what becomes of most good men?"
"i bet you i know," interposed the newfoundlander. "wimming!" he held one solemn finger in the air. "wimming and the red rum o' saint peer, i bet you. they ruins the best o' men."
"when next i saw dan," resumed ferris, "he'd got married to a boston girl and had a shore job—piano-moving—'just enough exercise to keep him soopled up,' he said. and there he was, in grand condition, sitting on the back porch and looking out on his possessions. a little white house with a porch in front and behind. and there was a garden with a little patch of cabbages, and a little patch of tomatoes, and a little patch of corn—a little patch of this and a little patch of that, not one blessed patch in the whole place as big as the bottom of a dory. and there was a school of white rabbits running around—for the children; and a fleet of pigeons sailing overhead—for the children. and the children like a fleet of little dories in the wake of dan, and his wife washing the dishes and peeking out the kitchen window with an eye to 'em all. this was after supper one sunday evening. and dan would hoist up first one kid and then another, and with his pipe he'd blow rings for 'em.
"and he sat there and kept advising me to marry and settle down. i stood it for a while, and then i said: 'dan, you remember that fourth o' july you beat up the seven policemen in saint johns?' i thought he'd shake his head off at me and go blind with winking and ducking his ear toward the kitchen window. 'and that night in soorey?' i goes on, and he looked scared, and 'sh-h!' he says, and i stopped. but later, meaning only to make conversation, i says: 'did ever you think o' going to sea again, dan?' and at that—i thought she was up-stairs with the children, but she wasn't—out she bounces with my hat—a spunky little woman, no higher than a buoy keg—and says: 'i don't want to hurry you, an old friend of my husband's as you are, but the last car for the city passes by the corner in five minutes. if you hurry, you can get it.' and i took that car, only it didn't pass for thirty-five minutes, and it rained most of the time i was waiting, and i didn't have any coat."
jack stood up and set his coffee-mug back in the grub locker and made as if to climb the companionway; but before he could escape professor pinned him with:
"do you or don't you approve of his marriage?"
"wow! i set out to tell a story to please tom here, and the first thing in telling a story is to tell it, not to stop to preach a sermon. and to finish the story, i tell you, boy"—jack turned and fixed fortune bay with a solemn eye—"i tell you they'll get you—sure's wind follows an oily sea the women will get you on your weak side, if you don't watch out."
"but you hear me, too, boy," put in tom, "if it'd been dan magee with a few boxin' lessons out to reno—dan magee afore he was married—you bet there'd been no fresh guys in chinese trousers leanin' over the hurricane-deck of any forty-thousand-ton steamer an' yellin' johnson! johnson! johnson! to no lone trawler on th' grand banks at four o'clock in the mornin'."
"g-g-r-r—" growled professor, and turned his face to the vessel's side.
"ay, boy. good night," said tom cheerfully.
