An hour and a half they stood
by, but no sign of him and no call from him. And then it was return to
your ship, sound quarters and call the roll. But everybody was present
or accounted for, and the skipper gave the captain of marines the devil,
and the marine captain gave the devil to his marine guard, the Georgia
boy, who by this time was beginning to doubt that he hadn't been asleep.
"Next afternoon the admiral was on deck taking the air, and after a
while he asks, 'Where was that marine guard standing when he says he
heard that air-port unscrewing and that splash last night?' And they dug
the marine out of the brig and brought him up, and he stood on the same
spot leaning over the rail, and the old man stands there and takes a
look down. And he looks to see if there was an air-port handy. And there
was--the air-port of the flag office. 'H'm!--h'm!' he says. 'That's all
now, Lyman,' to the marine officer. Nothing more; but an hour later the
marine was released from the brig--nobody knew why."
Throughout all the story Dalton had been sitting atop of the coffer-dam,
hands with flat palms pressing down, and feet hanging, with heels
drumming against the coffer-dam sides. After he had done he pushed
himself up by the palms of his hands, rearranged his row of tin
letter-files, shifted his electric bulkhead light, picked up a fat
folk-lore volume and waited, with eyes twinkling down on us, for
somebody to say something.
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