"
"We're willing enough, mother," I responded, with a sinking of the
heart, while Hoppner grimaced to me, behind her back.
We scrubbed out rooms, and the stairs, the bar, behind the bar, the
rooms back and front, where the sailors drank. We earned our board and
room ... for a few days.
* * * * *
At the Green Emerald I met my first case of delirium tremens. And it was
a townsman who had 'em, not a sailor. The townsman was well-dressed and
well-behaved--at first ... but there lurked a wild stare in his eye that
was almost a glaze ... and he hung on the bar and drank and drank and
drank. It apparently had no effect on him, the liquor that he took.
"Say, but you're a tough one," complimented Molly.
But _it_ began in the afternoon. He picked up a stray dog from the floor
and began kissing it. And the dog slavered back, returning his
affection. Then he dropped the dog and began picking blue monkeys off
the wall ... wee things, he explained to us ... that he could hold
between thumb and forefinger ... only there were so many of them ...
multitudes of them ... that they rather distressed him ... they carried
the man away in an ambulance.
* * * * *
Hoppner and I tired of the ceaseless scrubbing. One day we simply walked
out of the Green Emerald and never showed up again.
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