It would be hard to say whether the porter or I was most bewildered by our meeting, for I, mind you, had made a long journey on the mountain with Fermin Majusay, looking for a certain butterfly you wouldn't be interested in, and had spent a whole night by the fire which Fermin made, while the porter had only to go to the other end of the courtyard of the temple of Tzin Piaôu with his water-jug. Yet we returned from our respective errands at the same moment, and met at the door of my heathen tutor's cell! The porter came within an ace of letting the jug fall, and I dare say I should have done the same thing, if I had had a jug.
The old gentleman looked up at Nang and me, and into us, and through us, with eyes that smiled into vacancy, and at that moment, I think, I first began to entertain some doubts of his complete benevolence.
"Well, Nang," purred the old gentleman from his slab, "what's the matter with you?"
"Holy One," stammered the porter, "not two pipes ago I let this gentleman out to go on a long journey. And here he is. And he has not come back, for I barred the gate behind him."
"Oh, well, Nang, what difference does that make?" purred the Holy One, soothingly. "You may go now."
The porter went away, shaking his head and muttering, and my heathen priest and I were left alone together.
"And have you had," said he, raising himself a little on his hollowed slab, "an easy and a pleasant journey?"
"I did not go for pleasure," I answered sulkily, for I felt that he was mocking me.
"Ah, yes," he answered quickly, "it was for instruction. I forgot. And did you gain instruction from my Little Gods?"
"This time you sent me," I reminded him, "to see some Little Devils."
The spark in his eyes flickered into flame again. "Did I!" he murmured, purringly as a cat. "How I keep forgetting. But after all, it's merely a matter of names. Did you like what you saw?"
"No," I answered bluntly, "I did not. Your Little Gods, or your Little Devils, whatever you choose to call them, seem to me the veriest fiends. And cowardly fiends, at that. They catch men like rats, in traps, and drown them, helpless, as men drown rats."
"My son," purred my old heathen priest, "I wouldn't call them cowards, if I were you. They might not like it."
"Like it or not," said I, hotly, "they are cowards, if what I've seen of them is a fair sample of their ways. Do they never give a man a fair chance, in the open, to fight for his life, and for things dearer to him than life?"
"For life and things dearer than life," echoed my old heathen priest, and yawned, ever so slightly, and stretched his old legs out on his slab. "Dear me, I don't see why they shouldn't. Though of course I know nothing about it. Suppose," he suggested, "you look that up for yourself. I dislike to seem selfish, but really this is an hour which I invariably devote to a nap."
He made a little imperative, dismissing gesture with his hand, and—
"An' this," says big Terry Clancy, reaching over and getting a grip on the little man's collar, "this is our Scuts, the married man."
I never served in a company yet—and I've served in so many, first and last, that I'll never do anything else—I never served in a company yet that didn't have a bully and a fool in it. You can always tell them. No one ever dares to cuss out the bully, and somebody is all the time cussin' out the fool. In the old company the bully was Clancy, relieving me, as Special Orders says. We had some argument about it at first, being about of a size and the biggest men there, but Terry was younger than me, and he relieved me. The fool was a poor little yellow dog that we called Scuts. I don't even remember his name. He was the most helpless, discouraged, weak-eyed little hombre the sun ever dodged behind a cloud to keep from shining on. Worse than that, he had cold feet. All through the China campaign he was so scared he needn't have been afraid at all. A bullet couldn't hit such a little wrinkled, pinched-up thing as he was, even if it wanted to. But of course he got it worse than if he'd been just plain fool. The company don't stand for cold feet.
Even the officers got to jollyin' about him. "The little man," the Captain always called him. "H'm," grunts the Captain, the day we was getting it so bad in front of Tientsin. One of them club-footed Chinese bullets had just bored through his leg, and it looked like he'd bleed to death before the Doctor could fix him up. "H'm. Artery gone, you say? Where's the little man? He's just about the size to crawl in and hang onto it till you're ready to tie it. H'm."
It was the boys telling that to each other, and the Old Man's sending down the line afterwards to know if anybody had the makings of a cigarette, that kept the company from breaking that day, I reckon. We got it hard. If the Old Man had been with us after that, Scuts would sure have had to go. But he being in hospital, the Lieutenant just took the whole outfit with him, the part that could walk, anyway, and Scuts went back to Manila with us, and down to Samar.
"An' this," says Terry, picking Scuts off the bench and shaking him careless, like he was a rag baby, "is the idol of his company, the bold bad soldier lad that won the heart an' tuba-stand of the prettiest little brown girl in Samar. Boys," says he, spinning the little man round with a thumb and finger in the back of his neck, "let me present the husband of the beauteous Marie. Bow to the gentlemen, Scutsy."
"Aw, lemme go, Terry," says Scuts, blushing pink inside of his yellow skin, and grinning like a puppy that's just been kicked. "Aw, you lemme go."
"You set down, Scuts," says Terry, spinning him round again and laying him on the bench. "Set down an' tell us all about it. Give us a tip. We're all wantin' to know how you did it. We might want to get married ourselves some day."
"Aw, you gwan," says Scuts, twistin' round, with that little damp grin of his. "You're joshin' me."
"Man," says Terry, "'tis no josh. Honor bright, we're all envyin' you gettin' a fine pretty little girl like that. Eh, Casey?" he says to me.
"Straight goods," says I. "The little man pulled down a cold hand that deal."
"Hear that, Scutsy?" says Terry. "Come on, now, and tell us about it."
"Aw," says Scuts, throwing a chest as big around as my arm, and twisting a few white hairs on his upper lip, which was his way of wagging his tail, "Aw," he says, "Marie, aw—I kind of helped her keepin' her books, y' know, showin' her how to spell the boys' names an' all that business, an' we got to be pretty good friends. An' one day she says to me, 'Scuts, all the girls but me has got American man, an' they laugh at me,' she says. 'Scuts, I want a 'Merican man myself.' 'All right,' I says, never thinkin' of myself, 'I'll tell the boys.' 'Scuts,' she says, 'I got plenty dinero sellin' tuba to the boys, an' I likes you. You be my man.' Aw," says Scuts, twistin' the hairs, "I looked at her, an' I seen she was pretty fair-lookin', so I says, 'All right, Marie.' An' I ain't ashamed of it, neither," says Scuts, looking round with his big blue eyes, as the crowd begins to laugh. "She's 'bout th' nicest girl in this town, I reckon," Scuts says.
"Scuts, you gobble the pot," says Terry, twisting him off the bench. "You run along to Marie right now, an' tell her to be sure and wrap a blanket round you before she puts you to bed. Wouldn't that beat hell, now," he says to us, watching the little man trot off down-town. "They're all alike," he says. "Give a white one fifty plunks to buy a dog, an' she'll come back with a blear-eyed, knock-kneed pug, and give a brown one a chance at th' company, an' she picks out Scuts. Marie's a good, girl, too. That's th' worst of it. Th' better they are th' less they know," says Terry, "an' by th' time they get all th' sabe they need, nobody'd take th'm for a gift. Who's comin' over in th' grove an' drink a cocoanut?"
This was along before Balangiga, and things were running easy, the Old Man being still in hospital, and the Lieutenant being only a boy. A straight boy he was, but not sure yet how he ought to take us. The country was quiet and the people friendly as bugs, and we got careless. About half the boys was sleepin' out of quarters off and on, and the Top didn't say anything. I don't blame him. Of course me and Terry and a lot of other old-timers didn't go in for that way of doing business, but it's different with a boy. The only home he has while he's in the service is the kind he can make by hanging up his hat and ordering the drinks, and he takes it pretty rough if you don't let him have that in a place like the Philippines. So we went drifting along with only two sentries posted, and the quarters half empty every night, never looking for any trouble.
But one afternoon Scuts came trotting in, looking as yellow as Durham, and had a hablar with the Top, and then they both went across to the Lieutenant's quarters. They didn't come out till just before Assembly went for Retreat, and we smelled something. Sure enough, orders was read to keep magazines loaded, carry two hundred rounds in the belt, and not be absent from quarters between sunset and sunrise. Soon as we were dismissed, we got after Scuts.
"The natives had it fixed to rush us at night," he says. "Marie tipped me off. She told me not to be out of quarters to-night, an' th' Top, he figured out the rest," says Scuts, shortsighting, you might say, out into the underbrush as if he expected to see a gang of bolomen, and holding tight to his rifle.
"An' th' lady, she had another friend," sings out Piggy O'Neil. The crowd laughs, and Scuts turns a dirty pink again.
"Aw," he says, "she wouldn't tell me no lie. She's a good straight girl."
Then we began to debate it, the way we always do in the Army, if it's only a question of how far it is from New York to the moon, and finally everybody called everybody else a liar and we went to sleep.
In the morning everything was quiet and peaceful, so after drill the crowd was beginning to jolly Scuts for fair, when the operator stuck his head out of the window.
"Come up here, some of you, for God's sake," he says, and we didn't stop to ask questions. He was bending over his ticker, white as a sheet. "I'm a fool, all right," he says, "but this is sure gettin' on my nerve. There was a message started to go through from Balangiga ten minutes ago, and all to once— Hear that!" he says. The machine gave a jerky little chatter. "It's like a man sendin' in his sleep," says the operator. "For ten mortal minutes that thing has been stuttering halves of words."
"Who is it?" asks Terry.
"Murphy's sendin'," says the operator.
"Then he's jokin' with ye," says Terry. "Billy always was a great hand for his—"
"Huh?" grunts the operator, bending over, as she begun to stutter again.
"What's he saying?" somebody asked, but the operator didn't seem to hear him. Then all at once he began to talk in a voice that didn't belong to him.
"Balangiga," he read, "seven-ten A.M. Company—attacked by—bolomen—while at—breakfast. Rifles in quarters. Fought with—dishes and—knives and forks—but—no good—"
"Fought with--dishes and--knives and forks."
"Fought with—dishes and—knives and forks."
"God!" says somebody, and a dozen say, "Shut up."
But the operator didn't seem to mind. "Look out for—yourselves," he read. And then he begun to call out a list of names, very slow, and between each one you could hear the crowd draw a long breath. "Sullivan—Brewster—Fleishart—Nickerson—"
"Is that Tommy Nickerson?" says somebody.
"Shut up," says Terry.
"But Tommy was my bunky for three—"
"—Slavin—" reads the operator—"Kelly—Hunt—" and so he goes on, Terry checking off till we thought he never would stop. "Fourty-five, fourty-six, fourty-seven, fourty-eight," he says. Then the machine stopped talking. "That's all," says Terry. "Fourty-eight good men that they've killed—"
"Huh?" grunts the man again, and then the machine began to click very slow, and the operator's eyes bulged out of his head. "Murphy!" he says. "Christ," he says, "it can't be Murphy. Murphy's sendin'. Billy," he says, jabbing at his key and then listening. The machine clicked once or twice and then stopped. The operator turns round to us. "It's Billy," he says. "Billy's been sendin' this, an' he's dead." The big fellow just dropped down on his table and cried.
We looked at him and we looked at each other, and then we went down-stairs on tiptoe, like there was a dyin' man in the house. "Fourty-nine," says Terry, whispering like—"fourty-nine men of the regiment killed at breakfast, with no show to help themselves. God! And we might a got the same thing only—Scuts," he says, "where's that little woman o' yours?"
"Warn't she straight?" says Scuts, throwing his chest.
"You poor fool," Terry shouts, "go and get her up here before those devils suspect she told us. Take your rifle, damn you," he says, as the little man trotted off. "Fourty-nine o' them killed fightin' with their mess-kits. God!"
Just as we was getting into our kits, Scuts comes back. "I can't find her," he says. "I ast her mother, an' she just grinned at me," he says, staring out of the window as if he expects to see her there. "I can't find her," he says. "Terry, do you s'pose—"
"Scuts," Terry yells at him, "you get ready to go out on this patrol with us. Do you hear, or have I got to bat you?" he says, like he meant it.
We scouted down through the town, the people smiling at us just as friendly as ever, and never a sign of Marie could we get. So we swung out through the paddies and circled the town, coming back toward the quarters through the grove of cocoa-palms. The Lieutenant was on the point, and all at once he stopped short. We pushed up, and there, tied to a big palm-tree, was something I've tried hard to forget. 'Twouldn't have been so bad if she had just been dead, but all at once she—
"They cut her all to pieces an' it didn't kill her," says Scuts, surprised like.
The Lieutenant pulls his gun. "Right or wrong, I can't stand that," he says, and fires.
The little man never flinched at the report. "They cut her all to pieces, an' it didn't kill her," he says again, kind of like a phonograph.
"You get out of here, Scuts," says Terry, grabbing him by the shoulder and whirling him round.
"You leave me be," whines the little man. "God!" he says. "Cut her like that, an' it didn't kill her! An' her such a soft little thing—"
"Damn you, Scuts," says Terry, "will you cut it out, or have I got to break your head?"
"Aw, you lemme alone," whines Scuts, meek as ever. "I'm a goin', ain't I?" And he turns and trots back to quarters, never saying another word.
When we told the boys, there was cursing like you won't hear often outside the service, but after Terry had took them out in the grove in squads of half a dozen, they just stopped talking and sat down quiet in the sun, cleaning their rifles and looking at the town over across the parade. All at once, a rifle cracked, and a native over there cut for cover like a hen. The Lieutenant came running down.
"Whose gun was that?" he asks.
Old John Slattery, the oldest man in the company, with twenty-eight years in, gets up slow and stiff, and salutes. "Mine, sir," he says. "I was workin' the cartridges out of the magazine, an' she must've gone off accidental."
The boy just looks at us for about a minute. "The next one of you that fires a shot without orders," he says, "will stand up against the convent wall there in front of a squad, if I'm the only man in the squad. When the time comes," he says, "you'll have all the shooting you want. Until then, you'll leave the natives alone, or you'll have to kill me."
It was hard holding in, thinking of Marie over there among the palm-trees, and the boys in Balangiga, and Billy Murphy making his little speech over the wire; but the Lieutenant was right, and when the orders did come, we didn't have any kick coming about the way he let us carry them out. It was the roughest little old fighting I've ever been through.
You'd naturally thought the little man would brace up and get into it, after seeing what he'd seen. But he just got peakeder and meeker every day. Seemed like he was half asleep, and only woke up long enough to talk about his dreams. And his talk was enough to drive you loco.
One night we'd just come into camp, when Terry pitched his rifle away and dug for his boot as fast as he could. "Damn that ant," he says. "Who'd think a little thing like that could bite worse'n a good big horse-fly?"
"Terry," says Scuts, "how do you reckon it feels to have millions of red ants crawlin' all over you, an' you all cut an'—"
"Damn you, Scuts," says Terry, reaching for him and cuffing him, "will you shut up?"
At last one day we ran into them in full force in a little meadow that was broken up with clumps of bamboo and tall grass. We started firing in close order, for it's dangerous to get spread out in country like that, when you're fighting men with knives. But after a while, them rushing first one side of the line and then the other, and us getting after them with the bayonet, we opened out. Finally we got 'em going just like we wanted 'em, in bunches. We'd fire as they ran till they had to drop into cover, and then we'd rush 'em with the bayonet and butt. It was the easiest sort of going, more like chasing rabbits than men, and when the recall blowed we had only five men missing, Scuts among them. The Lieutenant sent out half a dozen of us to hunt them up, and in a little hollow, 'way ahead of where anybody else had gone, we found the little man lying curled up on his face looking comfortable, the way a man that's been killed quick most always does. Around him there was a heap of dead natives, no wounded ones. Terry turned him over. He had a bolo in his hand, and he was smiling his little weak-eyed smile.
"The son of a gun!" says Terry, gulping. "The damn little son of a gun! What the hell are you fellers standin' there for?" he says to us, picking up the little man and laying him over his shoulder. "There's four other lads you've got to find before sundown."
"You are bold, my son, at any rate," murmured my heathen priest, blandly smiling through me into vacancy. "The last man to knock at the gate of Tzin Piaôu with his foot, found the foot grown fast to the stone. They had to cut it off to set him free. That must have been a hundred years ago, more or less. I forget. The foot, with the gate-post attached to it, is standing in the Great Hall of the Images. Relic, you know. It's rather interesting, it's so out of the common run of relics. You might like to glance at it?"
"No, indeed," I said hastily. Something in my old gentleman's blandness was anything but reassuring. "I beg Tzin Piaôu's pardon, I am sure," said I. "And," said I, pulling out my purse, "if in my hurry I was unfortunate enough to injure the door in any way, I'd be more than glad—"
"Not at all, not at all," my old gentleman assured me. "It's a very solid door, indeed."
"I'm so glad of that," said I, putting up my purse.
"Still," purred the old gentleman thoughtfully, "of course one can never tell just how a god may feel about irreverence. In cases of doubt, the small precaution of an offering—"
I handed him a piece of gold, and he stowed it away, very carefully, in his girdle, just over the pit of his stomach. "My son," he said benignantly, "through me, his representative, T'zin Piaôu deigns to thank you and assure you that all is forgotten."
Receiving the thanks of a god was such an unwonted experience to me that I was not sure I could acknowledge them in proper form. So I bowed, and held my tongue. There are worse moves, in tight places, for one who can bow with dignity.
"And now, my son," said my old gentleman, poking subconsciously with the forefinger of his right hand at a hard spot just over his stomach, "tell me what has put you out. For you are put out."
"It's your infernal Little Gods," said I, boldly. "I'm sick of them."
"My infernal Little Gods!" he murmured. "What a curious conjunction of contradictory terms. And so you are sick of them. Why?"
"Their taste seems to run wholly to Tragedy," I complained, "and such dingy Tragedy. And such unnecessary Tragedy. How they do work to entangle some childish negro giant, some weak simpleton of a common soldier—"
My old gentleman yawned, hard as he strove to conceal the fact. "You must excuse me," he purred, when he saw that I had seen, "but really, at this hour— Suppose," he suggested, sinking back on his slab, "you watch a Farce or two, by way of change. How will that do?"
"If you think there are any Farces in the Orient," I said doubtfully, "I'm sure I'd be very glad—"
"It's easy to find out," said he, and moved his hand a little, and—I heard a voice speaking, an even, drawling, dryly humorous voice. This is what it said.
"Want passes, eh? Twelve-hour passes? H'm," says the Captain. Me and Big Terry Clancy and three or four others was standin' up in front of him with three months' pay in our blouses, lookin' pleasant and harmless for a fare-ye-well. "H'm," he says, "you're a fine bunch. Can you remember you're in Maniller now, not Samar?"
"We can, sir," says Terry.
"H'm. Take your mouth out fr'm under your chin, Clancy," says th' Old Man. "It looks better. H'm. Well, go along with ye, and if ye get into trouble ast th' Lord to have mercy on your crazy heads, for ye know well by this time that I won't," he says.
With that he signs the passes, an' that's where he let us all in for it. Yes, sir, me and Terry an' th' Old Man and the Regiment and the Little Brown Brother and the C.G. all had ours comin' right then, on'y we didn't know about it, not yet. We thought we was just homeward bound, and we wanted a little fun with Maniller to make up for the deeprivations of the Samar campaign. We got it all right.
"H'm," says the Captain, dealin' us the passes. "I'm sorry f'r Maniller, but ye have earned a little reelaxation. Don't forget you're f'r guard to-morrer, Casey," he says to me, an' we saluted an' hit th' trail.
Terry and me clumb into a two-wheeled chicken-coop wagon outside the Barracks, and th' horse not bein' only boy's size we lifted him by th' slings, th' pair of us, and just naturally wandered on tiptoe down to th' New Bridge. They give you th' biggest schooner of San Magill f'r your peseta there. New Bridge is th' name. Anybody can tell you.
We had some beers, and then we went across to Mrs. Smith's, and got a steak that never seen a tin can, and then we went back to the New Bridge and met up with some more of th' Army. There was an Engineer't could deal himself th' coldest hand of talk I ever bucked up against, and two Coast Artillerys, and a Marine, an Irishman named Schleimacher, that Clancy remembered helpin' to stuff a jade idol into his blouse, up in Peking those happy days. Maybe there was others. I don't remember.
I don't remember a whole lot of things about that day. Some way, the beer was cold, and along in the middle of th' afternoon my thoughts got to herdin' close, an' it was more'n I could do to cut some of th'm out of th' bunch an' read th' brands on th'm. There must a been strays around, too, for all of-a sudden I got to cryin' about me dear ould mither an' th' little cabin—Me! I was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, in a tenement, and I pulled my freight for Arizona as soon as I could walk. But I sure was cryin' about that thought, whoever it belonged to, and the Engineer ast me what th' trouble was, and I told on myself.
"Gentlemen o' France," says he—I ain't quotin' him exact, f'r I'm no college graduate—"Gentlemen o' France, and Ireland, what say you to charterin' a couple of wagons, large, glad wagons with rubber tires, and carryin' our brother out to refresh his homesick eyes on th' emerald, sunburnt sod of th' Luneta, whilst Professor Lovering's gu-gu band flirts with sweet music and we watches th' sunset glow on Mariveles?"
Yes, sir, right off'n th' bat he showed down a hand of talk like that, all aces an' better. It fazed us f'r a minute. He was a warm boy, that Engineer. But old Terry was game.
"Son of th' pick-axe an' th' thebobolite," he says, startin' to play up, "lead on," he says, "that is—if—if ye mean go to th' band concert, we're with ye while th' money lasts," he finishes, winded.
So we gets a couple of victoriers, two horses apiece, footmen and all, and strikes for th' Luneta, makin' full as much show as any civilian clerk in th' Q.M.D. More, maybe, f'r that Irishman Schleimacher wants to put his feet up on th' box. We tried to make him ride decent, but th' Engineer butted in. "Let him be," he says. "Otherwise what's th' use of th' footman, anyway?" So Sly kep' them up there, and I reckon we attracted a lot of attention that didn't cost us a cent.
By the time we got out there by the beach, th' air had cleared up my head some, and I sat up and began to take notice. And about the first thing I noticed hard was Terry. He'd quit talkin', an' there was a hell uv a disdainful look on that two-foot face of his, and he took off his hat to the flagpole when we went by it, second trip round. I'd ought to have stopped th' game right then. There's two kinds of Irish, if y' ever noticed,—common wild ones that generally has the luck to meet Old Trouble when she comes marchin' down th' street, comp'ny front; and th' fancy kind that could recruit a whole bunch o' trouble right in th' middle of Paco bone-heap. Terry's that last kind, and when he gets low-spirited and patriotic and full of beer, it's time to hunt for the tall and uncut.
Well, the band kep' on a playin', an' th' sun kep' on a settin' and we kep' on a drivin' round and round that mangy bunch o' grass, and ev'ry trip Terry got glummer and glummer. After a while, he says to me: "Look at th' pretty ladies, Casey, all th' pretty ladies in white dresses an' talcum powder, if not worse. An' spot th' gay young grafters in th' morgidged rigs. You and me can't speak to th' likes of them, Casey. We're nothin' but soldiers. That's all. Just soldiers, gettin' it in th' neck for fifteen-sixty per. Oh, hell!" he says, and spits hard and straight at a swell native in white clothes, that was waitin' for us to pass, "Look at him with shoes on, like a white man! Ain't there a ripple o' patriotism in th' whole damned outfit? There's th' old flag flyin' up above th'm, an' they never think of it. Just ride around and flirt with each other, and let natives walk around with shoes on, like white men. They make me sick. I'm on'y a soldier, an' I suppose th' Army is th' on'y place f'r lads like me and you—" he says.
He's ready to cry, an' th' Engineer butts in to change th' subjick.
"So say our long-suffering parents and sweethearts," he says.
"Pontoons," says Terry, talkin' fr'm about an inch below his stummick, "you're a lively lad with y'r tongue, but ye lack dep'. I ain't known ye long, an' I hope I ain't to know ye much longer, but I can see ye lack more dep' 'n any man I ever met. There's moments in th' life of a real man ye couldn't no more understand 'n a Chinese storekeeper. An' this is one of th'm," he says, pullin' his hat down over his eyes.
He didn't say no more, but when th' nigger band struck up th' Umpty-dee-he-hee-heee music, to show it was all over now, Terry got up slow and stiff, and threw a chest and squeezed his hat to his left breast and stood there in th' rig, lookin' considerable like some gen'rals you and me've seen. He kep' on standin' there after th' music had stopped, and after a while it got tiresome, and th' Engineer told th' cochero to sigue ahead.
"Hindi!" says Terry. "Don't you believe it. You're like all th' rest," he says to us, plumb disgusted. "You call yourselves soldiers, and all you think about is just chow. Chow, at a moment like this! There ain't a ripple of patriotism in the whole bunch of ye big enough to grease a twenty-two cartridge." And he made us drive up and down th' Malecon twice in th' moonlight before he'd go to supper.
While we was chowin', he kep' gettin' grumper an' grumper, and after supper, when th' Engineer wanted to be gettin' back to quarters—he was livin' over'n old Santiaygo—Terry just busted loose.
"Pontoons," he says, "I t'ought you was a man. You're big enough f'r one. Run away an' join th' Naytional Guard. Go an' be a pinkety-pink Vol'nteer, an' tell th' nurs'ry-sergeant not to wake you up without your p'rmission. Go an' dog-rob f'r a c'mission. Go an' do this an' do that," he says, thinkin' up a whole lot of places f'r th' Engineer to go, till fin'lly he got so ugly-ugly we took him into th' New Bridge again, and bought him a drink to calm him down.
It didn't do no good. He kep' one eye on his glass an' th' other on the Engineer, an' slung hot air till you wouldn't think a big guy like that would stand f'r it. But th' Engineer just grins and drinks his beer.
"Gentlemen," he says, "gentlemen and friend Clancy, there's a hard-hearted son of Plymouth Rock commands th' comp'ny that'll be roundin' up all th' poor little devils to check roll-call six times a day before he's been dead a month. He'll mult me a month's pay f'r missin' Retreat to-night—not that th' pleasure of enjoyin' you ain't worth th' price," he says to Terry, "but I might just as well miss Taps now, an' get a month in th' jug besides. What's th' use of freedom without money? To-night we have both, and we'll pour them out like blood, to soothe th' feelin's of a friend whose heart is sad to think th' flag which decked his cradle now floats over th' school-houses of th' brave but ex-tremely eelusive Fillypeeners."
Terry's mouth sort of hung open when th' Engineer struck his pace, but he brightened up quick as he got on to the drift of it.
"Ye read my feelin's like a padre," he says to him, "an' I like your build. If you was on'y in th' comp'ny, it's many a fight we'd have together, an' we may have one even yet. Here's lookin' at ye! You're a soldier, you are, and a gentleman. Here's how."
Of course we had a beer on the Engineer after that, and two on the Coast Artillerys, who'd been sayin' little all day and drinkin' hearty. Th' poor devils get that way, bein' stationed mostly near big cities like Portland, Maine, an' Guam, where chanstes are few since th' Christian Temp'rance persons got their strangle-holt. And then our A.O.H. friend, Schleimacher, sets them up an' says: "Fellers, a sailor like me—"
"Don't you miscall yourself; you're more of soldier than a heap of th' muts I herd with," says Terry, takin' a sling at us, "but ye do loot like a sailor," he says.
"I'm a soldier at sea, all right," says th' Marine. "I'm seasick as an Army Transport ev'ry trip. I was talkin' when you butted in. A sailor like me don't have many look-ins f'r what you might call reefined amusements. Cavite's mostly give up to drill an' cock-fights. I moves we all go to a nigger theayter to-night, where there's sure to be plenty doin', such as it is."
We went, victoriers and all, and Old Trouble must a been howlin' f'r joy to see us comin'. When we got there, there was a big crowd outside, and we got wedged up against one of th' stands where th' girls sell bananas and cigarettes an' such truck. One of th'm—a pretty good-lookin' girl she was, too—smiles at Terry, and he opens up a conversation, and fin'lly he says to me: "'Tis a long time since I've et a hard-boiled egg. I'm goin' to have a couple if they're fresh.
"Frescoes?" he asts, pointin' to the eggs. "Wavoes frescoes?" Fresco means cool in common bamboo Spanish, but he was usin' a private Castilian brand of his own. "Wavoes frescoes?" he asts. "Is the eggs cool?" Th' girl laughs.
"Como helados, chiquito mio," she says, laughin'. "Like ice, my honey-bunch," she says.
"Give me two, then, an' keep th' change," says Terry. "Dos! You're a neat little gu-gu," he says, holdin' up his two fingers.
He broke one of his eggs, and he dropped it quick.
"Ye little merrocker-leather daughter o' sin and shame," he says to th' girl—I ain't quotin' him exact neither—"ye little two-f'r-a-cent bunch o' calicker," he says, mixin' in some other words on the side, "bein' a lady, I can't say what I think of you, but it ain't such a hell uv a much. Don't ye grin at me! I might have et that! If it had on'y knowed enough to peep," he says to us, "it needn't never have got boiled alive. Wavoes frescoes! Damn a country where a pretty girl will lie to you f'r half a cent. I'll keep th' other one till I'm sure hungry," he says, an' slips his other egg into his pocket.
He kep' on mutterin' to himself while he was squeezin' up to th' little window, and a good tight squeeze we had. Y' see, old Ma Trouble[1] had c'llected a special crowd f'r the occasion, but we never noticed that. We just hiked ahead, and havin' plenty of money—though little of it was left by that time—we bought a box, and went in.
[1] It is interesting to note that Private Casey himself seems half aware that some maliciously mirthful over-power is concerned in his adventures. But why does he feminize it?
Maybe you've never been in a gu-gu theayter. Th' floor is th' ground, an' that's the orchestray. Around that runs a row of boxes without any fronts or backs or tops or sides. Behind them is th' balcony. Well, we swell guys pikes up to our box and starts in to be th' real thing. In one of them theayters you want to keep your hat on till th' curtain rises, an' smoke cigarettes an' look round at th' women. They expects it. That was easy f'r us, an' th' Engineer gets up a two-handed game of eyes with a chocolate-colored dame that begins to look entanglin'. But Terry broke it up.
"Turn round," he says. "Cut it out. She'll be settin' in your lap in a minute, an' stealin' th' buttons off'n your blouse. Don't ye trust any of th'm," he says. "Wavoes frescoes!"
And right there old Ma plays her joker. That drayma we'd come so far to see was called "Kahapon—" but maybe you don't sabe hablar Fillypeener. "Yesterday, To-day, and To-morrer," was th' name. Th' first act was Yesterday. That was Spain. There was nothin' much doin' f'r a while. Just talkin' slow an' keepin' your hand on your knife, a good deal like that Greaser show that come to San Antone once. But after a while, a priest showed up. He was one of th' Friars, and they knocked him down first off, an' then they kicked him all over th' stage, and sat on him and raised a rough-house with him for fair. Them Frailes must a been a long-sufferin' bunch, Yesterday.
They'd just tossed him out of sight, when a lot of Spanish soldiers come on and th' real shootin' begun. Well, sir, th' Fillypeeners cleaned them Greasers out for keeps, an' th' little leadin' lady grabs th' Spanish flag an' rips it up th' middle an' promenades on th' pieces. Th' house went wild at that, and while they was clappin' an' shoutin', the sun of Fillypeener liberty begun to rise at th' back of the stage. It was a shaky old sun with three K's on its face, like freckles. I see Terry fumblin' in his pocket for somethin', and then, just as th' sun is gettin' fairly up, somethin' puts th' poor thing's eye out, and th' curtain falls quick.
"Wavoes frescoes!" Terry sings out.
Well, sir, things livened up somethin' wonderful just about then. All th' natives in th' place, about a thousand of th'm, begun to yowl like cats and crowd toward our box, and half a dozen Spaniards, or half-Spaniards, was yellin' "Brayvo el Americano!" and some Americans that was scattered round th' audience was movin' up at th' double without sayin' anythin'.
"Nothin' doin', boys," Terry yells to them, standin' up, and a big man he looked. "Scat!" he says to th' natives. "Sigue Dagupan, you Kittycattypunanos, before I chew you up," he says, and makes like he was goin' to jump down among th'm.
They scatted all right, and we pulled Terry down, quiet enough, on'y his shoulders was twitchin' under his blouse. "Casey," he says to me, "I always took the Fillypeeners f'r Catholics till I seen th'm maul that padre, an' I've been gentle with th'm on that account. God help th' next one I lay foot to."
"I mistrust this is one of th' seditious plays we read about," th' Engineer whispers to me, "and I reckon To-day will be worse than Yesterday, f'r the big man. Hadn't we better get him out of here?"
"His patriotism is sure ripplin' lively," I says.
"An' did ye never read th' po'm," says th' lad, "about th' pebble dropped in th' middle of th' ocean, an' th' ripples it kicked up?"
"I never read no po'try," I says, "if I see it first, but something'll be kicked up f'r keeps, if Terry ever drops down in that crowd." And then th' house quieted down, an' th' curtain went up f'r th' next act.
To-day was us, th' Americans. A little gen'ral with pompydoor hair—that looked natchral—walked round f'r a while, hablaring to his crowd, and then six men in khaki came in, carryin' th' flag, and th' other gang began to shoot them up. It warn't pretty to watch, on'y we didn't have time to watch it much. Th' Engineer an' me had one of Terry's arms, and Schleimacher was tryin' to keep a hand over his mouth and not get bit. Th' talk he was tryin' to make was shockin'. But we held him all right till th' Americans was lyin' round th' stage picturesque and dead as hell. An' then th' little girl grabs th' flag, and you could hear the audience draw a long breath.
I didn't think she'd dare to do it, but I suppose it was on th' programme and they didn't want to give no money back. Sure enough she spits on it an' tosses it on th' floor, and then—well, Terry brushes the Engineer and me out of his way, and steps up on the edge of the box and makes his little speech. "Boys!" he yells, "remember Balangiga an' th' rest of th' tricks they've played us. That's th' flag," and he hops down to the floor.
"Come on," I yells to the Engineer. "If he gets on that stage alone, it'll be murder," and down we jumps.
It was like slippin' off a ford into quick water. The women was screechin' and the men howlin' and the boys behind us was laughin' and shoutin' and bangin' every head that came their way, and some fool begun to let off a gun into the roof. But th' Engineer and me just kep' on down that aisle after Terry. Just when he reached th' musicians, the curtain came down, but he picks a fiddler, fiddle and all, and tosses him into th' rotten old cloth like a sack of beans, and goes through th' hole after him.
But it stopped him up enough so't the Engineer and me clumb through onto the stage right behind him. We piled onto him just as he was makin' a rush f'r a bunch of actors, and there was a good lively mix-up f'r a few seconds. Men began to come through the curtain in a dozen places, and th' racket in the house doubled up. I don't know just everythin' that happened, f'r th' minute Terry gave in a bit, we drug him out th' back way and cut up an alley, never stoppin' to find out where Schleimacher and the Artillerys was. And I s'pose them victoriers is out front there yet, waitin' for their money. And I'll bet there never was no To-morrer in that drayma, not that night.
We got out onto the corner where there's a saloon, and then we stopped to listen. Same as always, the minute Terry couldn't do no more harm, he was gentle as a child. "There's patriotism around all right," he says, cockin' his head toward the racket back at the theayter. "It on'y needs somebody to stir it up. I'll bet anybody five to one in beers that somebody gets hurt out of this before it's over," he says, as a extry loud howl and a ripple of shots busts loose fr'm the theayter, and a patrol-wagon comes ting-tingin' it down the street. "I make it beer," says Terry, "because I'm thirsty."
"Take you and lose," says th' Engineer. "Step in here and we'll pay up one of th'm now."
So we stepped in there, and we stepped in sev'ral other places, till we sort of got th' habit. I reckon we traveled all over Maniller after that, and had beers with about half th' Army. Th' last thing I remember, Terry had got patriotic again, an' was sayin' a po'm about th' flag. Then my thoughts got to advancin' in regimental formation, and I sort of went to sleep.
Th' dinky little guard-mount march was goin' next mornin'—I reckon it was next mornin'—when I woke up, so I knew somethin' was wrong. I reached f'r my rifle, me bein' warned for guard that day, and I found I was in th' guard-house a'ready, and Terry was poundin' his ear on a bunk beside me. My head felt like a caraboo had walked on it, an' I yelled to the sentry for water.
"The ice-water's over'n th' corner, same as always," he says, peekin' in through th' bars. "You sure ain't forgotten this quick?"
"What did we do?" I asts him, sizzlin' down about a quart in one gulp.
"What didn't ye do? Pers'nally ye did up three of us while we was puttin' you in th' cooler here. Ye came home singin' in a carrermatter 'bout 3 A.M., an' Terry wanted to bring th' cochero in an' kneel him in front of th' flagpole an' cut his head off. You was tryin' to borry a bay'net f'r th' ceremony. But I guess you'll get to rememberin' most all you did, and some more, before th' Old Man gets through with you. He's had a squad of cops and an orderly fr'm headquarters to call on him a'ready this mornin'. Fr'm what they said, I should judge you tried to bust up the little old Civil Gov'ment and clean up the L.B.B. Don't be bashful about th' water," he says. "It's all f'r you."
While I was sloshin' ice-water over my head, Terry woke up. We sat on the edges of our bunks and talked it all over. We didn't feel real affectionate. We was still talkin', sort of aimless but effective, when the guard came an' took us out to the orderly-room and lined us up in front of th' Old Man.
"H'm," he says, swingin' back in his chair. "Do ye desire to call any witnesses to prove ye didn't do it?"
"No, sir," we both says quick. We'd known him f'r some time.
"H'm. That's lucky f'r you," he says. "I don't mind havin' men try to run my guard at three in th' mornin'," he says, talkin' to the ceilin' like an old friend, "nor tryin' to murder a coachman on my p'rade-ground, nor blackin' th' eye of th' sergeant of th' guard. H'm. Ye've got to ex-pect them little things fr'm real soldiers, of course," he says. "H'm. But when I have to drive away six policemen before breakfast who've came to arrest two of my men f'r assaultin' several hundred natives all to onct, I've got to draw th' line. There's eddy-toryals about them men in all th' native papers this mornin', or so I am informed accordin' to th' best of my ability, and in th' Cable-News. A brutal attack on peaceable, well-disposed Fillypeeners, and on hundreds of th'm at that, is an assault to the foundations of government which I can't overlook. H'm."
"She spit on th' flag, sir," says Terry.
"Th' Colonel wanted them men for a G.C.M. this mornin'," says the Old Man, "to say nothin' of what th' civil authorities want th'm for, and that's a whole lot. But there ain't been a gen'ral pris'ner out of this comp'ny for five year now, and I persuaded the Commandin' Officer that I could attend to th' case. H'm. What do you think about that, Casey?"
"Yessir," I says.
"H'm. And Clancy?"
"Yessir," Terry says.
"H'm," says he, "y'r confidence in me is flatterin'. I'll try not to disappoint ye," he says, and gets up an' goes limpin' round th' room on his Tientsin leg. He walks around there f'r five minutes, anyway, before he says a word. Fin'lly he stops and looks out of the window. "A very pretty p'rade-ground we have here, Mr. Boyd," he says to the Lieutenant.
"Very pretty, sir," says the Lieutenant, puzzled to know what the Old Man would be carin' about parade-grounds just then.
He hadn't served with him as long as me and Clancy had. You remember how the old barracks is built, in a hollow square round a p'rade big enough f'r a regimental corral, with th' post flagstaff stickin' up in th' middle, and lookin' about three hundred foot high?
"H'm," says th' Captain, gazin' out of his window. "Very pretty, indeed. But do you notice how the grass is growin' up between th' flagstones in the paths? That's not neat, Mr. Boyd. That's not fittin' in a place where the shadder of th' Flag must fall," he says, glancin' at us. "H'm. They tell me you're becomin' somethin' of a patriot, Clancy?"
"Yessir," says Terry.
"H'm. And Casey?"
"Yessir," I says.
"That's fine," says th' Old Man. "That's a pleasant surprise. H'm. But I hear ye have been wastin' y'r patriotism in wild firin'," he says. "It's too vallyouble to waste, 'specially in Maniller. I must try to help you make it flow in a gentle, steady stream. H'm. If you let it fly in chunks, it closely resimbles annichy," he says, "'specially in Maniller. H'm. Sentry, march these men to the p'rade and see that they pluck the grass, all the grass, between the stones, tie it in bundles of fifty stalks, neat bundles, and place the bundles at the foot of the post flagstaff. H'm. And, Sentry, see that after depositin' each bundle, they retire twelve paces and salute their flag before resumin' work. After you have cleaned th' p'rade," he says to us, "I trust I shall be able to find some other work for you. If ye either of you feel y'r patriotism flaggin' under th' strain, just tell th' sentry and he will bring you in to me and I will try to revive it. H'm. You understand, Sentry?"
"Yessir," says th' sentry. His mouth was twistin' up on him, an' th' Lieutenant's, an' everybody's, but just us and the Old Man's. He looks sort of surprised.
"Is they any jokes around here I ain't noticed?" he says. "I do love a joke. H'm. You seen any, Clancy?"
"Nossir," says Terry, pretty sick.
The sentry grinned all th' time he was marchin' us out, an' the news spread quick, and they was grins to meet us all the way. An' then th' sentry begins to guy us.
"You've skipped a stalk on y'r left flank, Clancy," he says. "I shall have to report it. And tie th'm in neat bundles of twelve stalks, is the orders, retire fifty paces, and salute th' flag."
"Cut it out, Skinny," says Terry. "He said bundles of fifty. I heard him m'self."
"Bundles o' hell an' fifty paces," says Skinny. "You can go an' ast him if ye won't believe me. Wouldn't ye like, perhaps, to go an' ast him? I'll march ye in with pleasure."
"Have y'r laugh while ye've got a place f'r it," says Terry. "I'll make y'r face over for ye, ye hyeener, when I get a chanst."
"Intimidatin' a sentry," says Skinny, but he shut up, far as talk went. On'y he made a bugle of his nose, an' begun to hum little tunes through it, and then th' crowd begun driftin' out on th' verandahs and caught on, and all you could hear was that whole damn parrot-faced battalion blowin' through their noses, Umpty-dee-he-hee-heee-he-he-hee-hum-hum-hum!
Terry and me said nothin' and picked busy f'r a while, but about th' hundre'th bundle th' hot stones and th' sun an' yesterday's beer an' th' crowd loafin' in th' cool verandahs an' ev'rything else all took holt of me to onct.
"You're an ornament to th' Service," I says, tryin' to crawl into th' shadder of the pole. 'Twas about a mile long and an inch wide.
"Stow y'r face," says Terry, tyin' a bundle with a thumb big as three of it.
"I'd enjoy tellin' you what I think of you," I says, "on'y I can't think of it all to onct. How's y'r patriotism ripplin' now?" I says. "Looka th' Flag, th' dear old Flag, floatin' up above y'r crazy head."
Terry swallers hard. "Casey," he says, "I may uv let ye in f'r this, but—" He picks up his little bundle and carries it over to th' foot of th' pole. Then he falls back and salutes. Then he comes over to me, an' his face was blossomin' into a grin! Yessir, there was a hole in them rugged features of his you could've shoved a blanket-roll into. "Oh, Casey," he says, "Casey, man, if th' Old Boy soaks it to us this way f'r what we done, wouldn't ye, oh, wouldn't ye just like to see what he'd a done to that theayter, if he was runnin' this little old town?"
An' thinkin' of that, I grinned too.
I came back, but I am not certain that I had ever left the old temple of Tzin Piaôu. I roused, then, but I am not sure that I had been asleep. However it may have been, I was conscious of being there in the temple of Tzin Piaôu for a moment, long enough to observe that my old heathen priest, half reclining on his slab, was thoughtfully fingering a hard lump in his girdle, just over the pit of his stomach.
But the moment he saw me looking at him, he made an imperative little gesture, and—
"Tell th' Professor that other one, Casey," a husky voice commanded. "You know. Th' day we lost th' friend o' Sly's."
Thereupon the even, drawling, dryly humorous voice began to speak. This is what it said this time:
"An' then Terry says, 'You're too skinny to fight, an' you ain't big enough to kill, an' I wouldn't feel much lonesome if you was somewheres else. You're what I call superfalous.'" The voice dwelt on the magnificent polysyllable lovingly. "An' th' mayreen hobo, he lays his head down on th' table an' weeps some weeps into his glass. It was empty. It always was. 'That's th' wye it gaos with me,' he says. 'I can't never myke no friends. F'r twenty year I've been sylin' th' seas fr'm the North Paole to th' South, fr'm th' East Paole to th' West, chysin meridiums fr'm wyve to wyve, lookin' f'r a friend. But ev'rywhere I gaos—'
"'Hell,' says Terry, 'if you feel that bad about it, we'll have one more. Casey,' he says to me, 'is they an East Pole? It sounds reas'nable, some way.' An' then," the voice mused blissfully, "we had th' tamarin' cocktails, an' then we went to ride with the accidental caraboo. That was a batty day."
"Ain't I never told you about that day?" Suddenly the voice was coy. "Oh, I don't dast to tell," it murmured. "Local 23 o' th' Christian Temp'rance Union'll be gettin' after me f'r makin' it look like th' Army still drunk. I don't want to spread no false impressions. Ev'rybody knows that since th' vile canteen was took away, an' we was give a real chance to lead th' sinful life, there ain't one soldier in ten would even pass a saloon, willin'ly. No, sir," the voice remarked thoughtfully, "I don't reckon there's more'n one in twenty in th' whole Army would let a s'loon get by him, if he had to walk a mile out of his road.
"Who this superfalous man was," said the voice, "I don' know. An' where we was, I've been tryin' to find out ever since. We started in on beer, but we switched to th' tamarin' cocktails, an' we ended in th' Lord knows what. Don't you never drink a tamarin' cocktail, 'nless you want Local 23 startin' a grand guard patrol across your trail.
"That day begun," the voice continued, "with a terrible painful talk me an' Terry had with th' Old Man. It was th' summer we laid in Maniller after th' Samar campaign, an' me an' Terry an' the Irishman named Schleimacher had that patriotic go with th' gu-gu theayter. That coincident shook the Old Man's faith in us way down to th' roots, an' f'r weeks afterwards he kep' us doin' double guard an' double kitchen police an' stunts like that till we was all wore out. So this mornin' we bucks up an' tells him we needs some more passes an' a day off.
"'H'm,' says the Old Man. 'If I done my duty by sersiety, you two'd never get out together, less'n one was in a submarine an' th' other in a b'loon, and then I'll bet,' he says, 'you'd manage to get your trails tangled some ways. H'm. Who am I to butt into the stars in their courses and get a sore head? I can't keep ye in quarters no longer; y'r luck at poker is causin' too many hard feelin's. An' I don't dass to let ye out sep'rate, f'r each of ye needs th' other one to bring him home. H'm.' He gives us th' passes an' then, just when we thought we was saved at last, he calls us back. 'How much money have ye got, anyway?' he asts.
"We hates to name th' size. Th' cards had run favorable since last pay-day.
"'That had ought to keep ye in fines f'r quite a spell,' he says, when we told him. 'H'm. Give it here. I'll help ye save it.'
"We hands over, an' he peels two skinny little bills off them nice fat rolls. 'I'll let ye have five apiece,' he says. 'That makes three dollars f'r chow, an' a dollar to hire carrermatters, an' ten beers apiece. Ten is all ye need. Y'r stummicks is only supposed to hold a pint and a half, anyhow,' he says. 'I'll send th' rest of th' money over to the Adjutant's safe, where you can get at it handy after summary court to-morrer. H'm.'
"Poor as we was, we'd a been glad to get away, but he stops us again. 'Won't ye be good this once?' he says. 'I can't make it out,' he says, sad-like, to th' ceilin'. 'Here's Maniller layin' open before them, with nice long walks stretchin' out all around her. All kinds of nice long hot walks beckonin' them out among th' rice-paddies. An' th' Luneta, where they could set and look at th' ships when they was tired, and kill muskeeters. An' th' Y.M.C.A. readin'-room. An' th' Lib'ry. H'm. Yet I'm mor'lly certain they'll pass all them things by on the off side, an' fetch up in some low groggery, debauchin' young Engineers and Marines an' shatterin' th' Gover'ment. Why can't my oldest soldiers ack decent?' he says, 'sos't I can take some pride in th'm?'
"'May I ex-plain to th' Captain, sir?' asts Terry. 'That theayter biznai was an axxident.'
"'An axxident!' says the Old Man. 'H'm. If you see any axxidents comin' along to-day, give them the road. They'll get into just one more axxident,' he says to th' ceilin', 'an' they'll break my heart an' then,' he says, 'there'll be something noticeable doin'. Something noticeable. H'm.'
"We seen that was no place for us, and we sneaks out like a pair of cats that had got caught in swimmin'. 'Did you see his eye?' I says, when we was safe outside. 'It's up to us to walk cracks to-day.'
"Terry just grunts, and the silence didn't really get broken till we'd beat it down Real and was settin' on a bench in th' Luneta. Terry spoke first. 'Any man that figures up my stummick,' he says, 'at a quart and a half, has got another guess.'
"'That's a handsome Chink cattle-boat out by the end of the breakwater,' I says. 'Ain't she got graceful lines?'
"'Why,' asts Terry, scuffin' away at the gravel under the bench, 'didn't he give us a nickel and ast f'r the change? Whose money is that, anyway?'
"'That transport's a picture,' I says. 'If she was on'y a little closer, we could almost see the stripes round her smoke-stack.'
"'If,' says Terry, 'they was any way of makin' those dollars stretch, I'd paint a first coat of blood-color all over Maniller, just to show him what I could do. But he got th' bulge on us when he got th' cash.'
"'Get on to the ships,' says I. 'He'll ast us how they was lookin'.'
"All to once Terry begins smoothin' the gravel back with his toe. 'Casey,' he says, 'they will stretch! This is the day we walk on our feet and save two dollars carrermatter money. It ain't such a much, but—an' then,' he says, 'they's the chow money. I know a hash-fact'ry where we can get a plate of beans f'r a peseta y media, an' beans is fillin'. Y'r stummick don't hold but two quart and a half, anyhow, and you don't want to overload it. Come on,' he says, jumpin' up. 'Altogether there's about seventy-seven beers got by the Old Man. Come on! We must have lost a lot of time.'
"'As you were,' I says. 'If you take me f'r a low booze-fighter like yourself,' I says, 'you're much mistaken; and besides,' I says, 'did ye ever hear the Old Man talk like he did this mornin'?'
"'Onct,' says Terry.
"'An' you know what you got,' I says. 'It's up to you and me to roost high and pull up our feet, f'r if old Ma Trouble gets her claws into us this happy day, th' Old Man is plannin' to draw cards, too, and they're a bad pair to buck. Sabe?'
"Terry seen I was right, an' that's the way we come to land down there on th' waterfront. Don't ast me where it was. We walked through about six gates in th' Walled City and come out on the river, an' took a canoe and landed somewhere way down on the other side. That's all I know. There was the place waitin' for us. Café of the 400 Flags, it says in Spanish over the door, and underneath, in English, Sailor's Friendly.
"And it was a nice friendly sort of place. We was the only ones there, and after we'd got sat down in a corner by a window, we figured we'd fooled old Ma Trouble f'r once. There warn't anybody within a mile to lead us astray, an' we just aimed to set there an' look at th' boats on th' river till we'd had enough, and then go back to Barracks and surprise the Old Man, and make him ashamed of himself. But it warn't to be.
"We hadn't been settin' there more'n half an hour, when that A.O.H. sailorman Schleimacher from Cavite comes in the door, and th' sorrerful lad was right behind him. It was all off then, on'y we didn't know it.
"'Ahoy, amigos,' says Schleimacher. 'Well, well, well, if it ain't the two paytriots! Always sloppin' round in beer, ain't you? Don't go dilutin' your insides with that stuff. Here, you,' he yells to the Malay pirate behind the bar, 'fetch along th' thought-remover f'r th' Señors.'
"'W'isky?' asts th' pirate.
"'If that ain't like a Marine!' says Terry. 'But then you ain't got a canteen no more, either.'
"'No, we ain't, dankum Himmle,' says Sly, an' th' sorrerful sailorman butts in, layin' his head down on th' table and cryin' like a child. 'Times ayn't what they ware,' he says. 'Men don't drink like they used. Mytes, I remember a dye in Punt' Arenas, off Tristan d'Acunha—'
"'Who's y'r friend, Sly?' I asts.
"'Damfino,' says Sly. 'He picked me up at th' Navy landin'. Said my clo'es smelt so salt it made his mouth water. Some lime-juicer on th' beach, I reckon. No, sir, dankum Himmle, there ain't no more canteen. When I think,' Sly says, 'of th' pay I've wasted aboard, f'r belly-wash, but now,' he says, 'you don't hit th' beach on'y after pay-days, an' then you've got th' money, an' you've got the thirst, an' Mine Gott!' he says, 'the load you can get on! No canteens in mine. Fill th'm up. They's one f'r you, Barnacles, if you can keep the tear-drops out of it.'
"The guy sat up straight enough, soon as a drink was mentioned, and we got a good look at him. Talk about y'r hoboes! That mayreener looked like he'd been trampin' it way down on th' bottom, and hadn't got around to shakin' himself and combin' the shells and seaweed out of his hair.
"'Well,' says Terry, when he'd took him in, 'he sure does look superfalous to me.'
"The guy mops up his drink, an' lays his head down on th' table again. 'That's th' wye it gaos,' he blatters. 'I can't never myke no friends, and so I gao chysin' meridiums over the angry wyves. I 'ad a friend onct, to Valparaiso, as smart a 'and as ever reefed a stuns'l—' he chokes up so bad he can't talk.
"'Good Lord, Sly,' says Terry, 'have we got to set around with that all day?'
"'Chuck him overboard if you want,' says Sly. 'He ain't mine. But let him stay, and I'll pay for his. I like a crowd around to kind of keep them movin'.'
"'I 'ad a shipmyte onct off Comorin,' bleats th' sorrerful lad, 'but 'e was lost, steppin' of th' bowsprit'—he chokes up.
"'Oh, well,' says Terry, 'if you feel that bad about losin' him, we'll have one more. We'll all pay f'r his rounds, Sly, if he's broke. On'y, he does look superfalous to me.'
"I reckon that wanderer must have felt near as bad as he looked! Seemed like he'd been pretty near everywhere once or twice, an' ev'ry place he remembered, something about it made him cry. We got ust to him after a while, and he just sat with his head among th' glasses, 'ceptin' when a drink come by.
"Long about noon we got to wonderin' what we'd better drink next. Th' thought-remover warn't workin' to suit Sly. 'Th' ferry goes at six,' he says, 'an' I ain't even got a start yet. Le's try an' find somethin' certain.' Then th' weeper looks up.
"'I can't 'ope to myke no friends,' he says, eyein' us mournful, 'but I can myke a tamarin' Cocktail. A little lydy down to Macassar learnt me. Mytes, w'en I think of that pore young girl an' the 'orrible wye I lost 'er—' it took two thought-removers to get him sos't he could tell th' pirate what bottles to bring f'r th' cocktail. They made a bunch. Th' sorrerful lad most looked happy when he saw them.
"'They ayn't no tamarin's,' he says, 'but that don't myke no differunce. Mytes, you'd ought to see th' tamarin's at Isle o' France! W'en I think I'll never see no tamarin's like them no more—' On'y th' bottles saved him. He took a swig out of the first one he touched. Right there th' Sorrers o' Satan lad begun to look fishy to me. Didn't seem like anybody'd need quite so many drinks to drown anything but a thirst. But I forgot all that when he gave me th' cocktail.
"'Stead of a kick it had a kind of a pull to it, that drink did, like a b'loon. 'Two more of them,' says Sly, settin' down his glass, 'an' th' Cavite ferry can go when it very well pleases. I can walk.'
"'If so be I 'ad a friend,' says th' mayreener, sort of proud at th' way we lapped them up, 'they's nothin' I'd love better'n to set all dye long mykin' tamarin' cocktails for 'im.' I reckon that was no lie. 'Mytes,' says he, 'w'en I think I'll never 'ave no real friend to myke th'm for—'
"'Brace up, Bo,' says Terry, like a father. Th' tamarin's had took holt that quick. 'Brace up, old sport. We're all friends o' your'n here. Ain't that so, boys?'
"'Is it, mytes?' says th' mayreener. 'Is it? Well, well, I never thought to 'ave three friends all to onct! W'en I think of all the 'undreds of shipmytes—I'll be mykin' up another, mytes.'
"So Barnacles, he got started makin' th'm, an' we got started drinkin' th'm. So did he. I never seen a drink ack like them. Didn't seem to have no real effeck, but things just moved away back where they belonged an' let you alone. And sympathetic! Say, if we could on'y manage to throw a few of them into Local 23, we'd get th' canteen back. They sure are a funny drink. 'Bout th' sixth, we couldn't do enough f'r that stranded mayreener. I'd forgot all about his seemin' fishy, and me an' Terry an' Sly hung round him like a bunch of old-maid aunts, givin' him drinks ev'ry time he remembered anything. He sure had a great mem'ry. 'Twarn't till th' middle of the afternoon it begun to show signs of givin' out. An' then he thinks he wants to have a look at Maniller—sos't he could remember that, I reckon.
"His legs wouldn't quite hold him. 'Mytes,' he says, 'me knees ayn't what they ware. W'en I remember them trips to Kerguelen's Land, down round San Fernando Fo—in them dyes no smarter 'and rove a dead-eye or 'auled a keel. But now—'
"'Give him an arm, Casey,' says Terry. 'Can't you see he ain't as young as us? Brace up, old sport, we'll look out f'r you.'
"So th' three of us steers th' sorrerful sailorman out onto th' muelle, an' there warn't a livin' soul on th' whole river front but just the accidental caraboo! He was standin' hitched to a cart, right where old Ma had left him.
"Th' mayreener breaks down when he sees that caraboo. 'A buffalao!' he blatters. 'I ayn't seen one of them since I was a gye young sheperd—fisherman, on me father's little farm in th' valleys—beaches o' Bengal! Mytes, lead me to th' buffalao.'
"'That ain't a buffalo, sport,' says Terry. 'Buffalos has hair. That's a caraboo, an' you don't want no part of him. They ain't safe.'
"''E'll not 'urt me,' says th' mayreener. 'Aoh, th' buffalaos I've fed and watered with these 'ands in th' dear old dyes. Lead me to 'im, mytes.'
"We steers him over and he falls on that caraboo's neck and cries into his ear and blubbers some kind of talk to him: an' th' caraboo wriggles his ear an' waggles his little tail an' blubbers back. Them two understood each other! It knocked me flat. All my respec' f'r th' mayreener comes back.
"'Ay, mytes,' he bleats, 'it mykes me young again to talk with 'im. Put us up on th' cart, mytes.'
"'Ye can't drive him, sport?' says Terry, doubtful.
"'F'r years I done nothink else,' says th' mayreener. 'Aoh, the old, 'appy dyes! Put us up, mytes, an' pass us th' nose rope.'
"'If th' caraboo kills him,' says Terry, 'it'll on'y put th' pore old feller out of his mis'ry.' So we hists him up an' gives him th' nose rope, and there he set cross-legged like a nigger, jerkin' th' rope an' talkin' caraboo-talk, an' th' caraboo goes! Yes, sir, th' mayreener drives him up an' down like he'd been born there! I never seen no other white man that could do that.
"'Come aboard, mytes,' he says, pullin' up. 'We'll tyke a little turn about th' taown.'
"Seems like I heard old Ma Trouble scratchin' herself somewheres. 'You go along an' help Ma, Terry,' I says, 'an' I'll report the axxident to th' Old Man. When it comes to takin' a ride with a stolen caraboo an' a hayseed mayreener fr'm th' beaches of Bengal—-'
"'I knowed I couldn't 'ope to 'ave three friends,' says th' mayreener, doublin' up an' cryin' like a child. It didn't touch my heart, not hard, but Terry an' Sly was still full of tamarindy feelin's. 'Don't spoil th' pore old feller's fun,' they says. 'We'll bring th' caraboo back, so it ain't as if we stole him. He's just borrered.'
"So I clumb on and we starts, th' mayreener settin' an' jerkin' th' rope, and us hangin' our legs off th' back of th' wagon. And by th' time we'd gone a ways, I begin to like it! It was somethin' new, an' then I reckon perhaps th' joltin' freshened up my tamarin's some. Anyhow, th' houses moved back and made room, an' th' people on th' sidewalks, givin' us a glad hand an' a merry ha-ha, sounded far-away an' soothin', and when we'd got up to Binondo bridge it seemed so natchral I wasn't even wonderin' any more why a copper didn't pinch us. I don't sabe that yet, but I reckon old Ma kep' them off till she got done with us.
"Yes, sir, that ride went fine, till we come to th' foot of the Escolta. You know what it's like at that time of day? Jam full! A line of rigs was standin' along each side of that narrer little old street, and inside of them two more lines was pokin' along, opposite ways, and in what was left of th' middle th' horse-cars was doin' rapid transit. Didn't look like you could crowd a thin dog through that mess.
"'Here's where we turn round, sport,' says Terry, but it was no use. Th' mayreener whispers some messages down th' rope an' th' caraboo swings into th' car-tracks, and next minute there we was plowin' a road up the Escolta, and no way of backin' out till we hit the other end, half a mile away. I never felt so conspectuous in my life! Ev'rybody was lookin'. 'Tain't often they see three soldiers caraboo-drivin' up the Escolta, with old man McGinty at th' rope!
"We might have made it, I still think, if th' mayreener had stuck to th' job. He sure sabed caraboo. But he lays down on us. Yes, sir, right there he just curls up and goes sound asleep! 'My watch below, mytes,' he says. 'Relieve th' w'eel,' an' he topples over. Sly grabs th' rope.
"And away we went! Seems like th' caraboo knowed something green had took holt. He puts his nose down an' whoofs an' swings his head. First wipe th' tip of a horn catches a chicken-coop wagon, an' R-r-rip!—th' spokes is out of a wheel. He swings th' other way an' takes a piece of varnish, with th' wood still on it, of a shiny new victorier. Sly gets mad at that!
"'Clear out of th' fairway, ye blinkety-blanked-blicked-zinked longshoreman,' he yells, hittin' th' caraboo a crack with the end of th' rope. Th' caraboo breaks into a gallop, swingin' them horns like a scythe, and ev'ry jump Sly hands him another. 'Stand by to repel boarders,' he sings out. 'Hit th' victorier guy in th' eye if he sets a foot on deck. Wheee-ee-e! Luff up, ahead there, you're off your course! Luff up! Well, take it, then.' Zing! Bing! One of our wheels—they was sawed solid off a log four foot through—hits a carrermatter an' tosses it onto another, and them two piles up some more. 'Whee-ee-ee!' Sly yells. 'Hold her as she is! Didn't carry away nothin' that trip, did we? Whee-ee-eee!'
"He lights in with th' rope and away we goes again, two ton of caraboo and two ton of wagon, both built low, at a dead gallop! Rigs was pilin' up all around us, an' horses was kickin' an' squealin', an' wheels was lockin' up an' rippin' out spokes, an' cocheros was cussin' in ten languages. Away back I seen a mounted cop chasin' us, but Ma had him headed off in that mess.