...
I reached so far, in the dream, as to buy several novels of the Chinese,
printed in their characters, of an itinerant vendor....
The everyday world swung into my ken again.
Three junks, laden with American marines, dropping down the river from
Pekin, cut across my abstracted gaze ... the boys were singing.
They marched off on the dock on which I sat. They were stationed right
where they deployed from the junks. Men were put in guard over them.
At Tien Tsin they had behaved rather badly, I was told by one of
them,--had gone on a Samshu jag ... a Chinese drink, worse than the
worst American "rot-gut." ...
"Wisht I c'd git off the dock an' rustle up another drink somewheres."
"They wouldn't let us off this dock fer love nor money," spoke up a
lithe, blue-shaven marine to me--the company's barber, I afterward
learned him to be....
"Yah, we got ter stay here all afternoon, an' me t'roat's es dry es
san'paper."
"Where are they taking you to, from here?"
"Manila!... the _Indiana's_ waitin' out in th' bay fer us."
"--Wish I could get off with you!" I remarked.
"Wot's the matter? On th' bum here?"
"Yes."
Immediately the barber and two others, his pals, became intensely,
suspiciously so, interested in my desire to sail with them....
"--Tell you wot," and the company barber reached into his pocket with a
surreptitious glance about, "if you'll take these bills an' sneak past
to that coaster lyin' along the next dock, the Chinese steward 'ull sell
you three bottles o' whiskey fer these," and he handed me a bunch of
bills .
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