"
There was a general shifting along the bench, to make room for possible
fray. It was a sore point with Sam Dreed that the ship chandler had that
day effected a lien for labor on his ship, and the libel was nailed to
the mast.
"Now they'll scandalize each other," murmured Zinie Shadd.
They were turned from that purpose only by the sudden passing at their
backs of the woman in question, Caddie Sills.
Quiet reigned. The older men crossed their legs, sat far down on their
spines, and narrowed their eyes. The brick wall of the Customs House,
held from collapsing by a row of rusty iron stars, seemed to bulge more
than its wont for the moment--its upper window, a ship's deadlight,
round and expressionless as the eye of a codfish.
Cad Sills ran her eye over them deftly, as if they were the separate
strings of an instrument which could afford gratification to her only
when swept lightly all at one time by her tingling finger tips, or,
more likely, by the intangible plectrum in her black eye.
The man she selected for her nod was Sam Dreed, however.
Peter Loud felt the walls of his heart pinch together with jealousy.
It was all in a second's dreaming. "Gape and swallow," as Zinie Shadd
said, from his end of the bench. The woman passed with a supercilious
turn of her head away from them.
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