Three
weeks ago, up to the dock in Bayonne, a bunch lit a candle to look for
something in the corner of an oil ship's tank, and the coroner couldn't
tell the buttons of one from the other. Gas, yes. Another half minute
and these chaps would've got the surprise of their lives. But maybe I'd
better go for'ard and give 'em a few chemical explanations, or some
day, meaning no harm, they'll be blowing out the side of the ship. So
long."
III
The pump-man roomed with Jenkins, the third officer, in the
superstructure, amidships. The passenger sometimes, as on this night,
looked in there.
Jenkins was an Englishman, and of him they told the story that when he
first came to the country half the space in his yellow tin trunk was
taken up with cakes of Pears' soap. Somebody had told him that he
couldn't buy any in the United States. He still had some of his original
load of soap, and now hauled the tin trunk out from under his bunk, took
out a cake and made a lather, with which he slicked down his thin, sandy
hair, smoothing it, the while he gossiped cheerfully with Kieran and the
passenger, on each side of the middle parting until it made a straight
line between the bottom of his ears to his eyebrows. His ears were stuck
high up on the side of his head--a sign of high intelligence, he used to
say.
Jenkins had to go on watch at midnight, and so now he was getting ready
to turn in.
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