The Luck of the Irish. Harold MacGrath

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СКАЧАТЬ the job until the call came.

      For the first time in his life he recognized a real barrier. Here was a mixed-up family, bound together by a curious set of ties for six months. In a week or so, he cynically argued, everybody would know everybody else, family histories and so forth. And yet he hadn't the nerve to go over and speak to the girl. Why? Was it something in the fine profile, something in its expression that spoke of secret sorrow? He could not analyze what it was, but he knew, then and there, that he would never be able to speak to her with the free-dom he had previously used toward typewriter-girls, shop-girls, girls in the lunch-rooms, and the girl in the manicure-shop.

      He turned on his heels, fuming at both his lack of courage and this invisible barrier. He hated red hair and freckles. He looked at his hands. Well, they weren't so bad, even if they were as large as hams. The size of his feet had always troubled him; but the Lord knew they had to be big to carry around his weight. The inventory was highly unsatisfactory.

      For more than an hour he wandered about the decks. He was like a friendly outcast dog, striving to catch some one's eye and invariably failing. He was all alone. Most of the tourists ​were gathered in groups, chattering and gabbling over red-covered volumes which later he found to be the works of an eminent author by the name of Baedeker. Once upon a time, urged by Mrs. Burns, wife of his partner, William had been inveigled into a revival meeting. These tourists looked like a revival meeting turned loose.

      He sat down in a steamer chair, and he had no more than stretched out his legs comfortably when he was politely requested to vacate.

      "My chair, if you please."

      "Oh!" William got up and tried another, with the same result. "Say, where do you get these bedsteads?" he asked, with strained affability.

      "The deck steward will rent you one, sir," he was crisply informed.

      Once more William began his wanderings. He was little brother to Ishmael. Suddenly he laughed. They were all trying to bluff one another that they were old travelers or the most important people from their home towns. All pure bunk. Wait until the old blue lady began to heave; a lot of home-made halos would go back into the steamer trunks.

      After innocently insulting the first and second officers, the chief steward, and the purser, William finally located the deck steward and demanded a chair. It was given to him abaft the deck-houses amid a forest of ventilators and at the side of a huge coil of tarry-smelling rope.

      "Say, haven't you got anything down nearer ​the orchestra? I might as well be in the middle of Iowa."

      "Sorry, sir; but all the other places were spoken for weeks ago."

      William sat down and counted the ventilators, booms, guy-ropes, and ladders. He was learning. He had until this black hour believed that the chairs went along with the ticket. All right; if the cinders didn't bury him before they reached Naples, he'd find another spot. Beyond the coil of rope was another chair upon which lay a rug, a pillow, and some novels. Some one was going to share the desert with him. He stretched out his legs, assured that this time he would not be molested. Well, here he was, William Grogan, sailing toward his great dream—elephants and camels and cocoanuts by hand. Would there be any great adventures, the kind he had read about? Would they be shipwrecked and cast upon a desert island, with a tool-chest, a box of cigars, and a compass? Not in a million years. He would see the sights, spend a little money, and go home. There wouldn't be any boob to rescue from cruel gamblers; not on a trip like this. Besides, that was one of his rules, never to interfere with a guy who wanted to part with his money. And there wouldn't be any rescuing his school-teacher, either; no such luck.

      For a while he watched the stern—what he could see of it—go up suddenly, hang for a space in midair, then drop like a plummet. By and by he dozed. He had gone blue-fishing several times ​during rough weather, and his diaphragm had suffered no undue activities therefrom. In fact, he was one of those fortunate individuals who are born good sailors.

      He was awakened by the westering sun getting between some of the ventilators and striking full into his eyes. He sat up and blinked, looked at his watch—it was five—and glanced at the other chair. It was occupied. Moreover, it was occupied by no less a person than his school-teacher. He was now doubly sure that the mysterious hand of fate was in all this. What more convincing sign did he need?

      A moment later the sun awoke her also.

      "Pretty rocky seats," ventured William. "Wouldn't you like me to hunt up a better place?"

      "No, thanks; this was my choice." She picked up a book and began to turn the pages suggestively.

      But he was altogether too lonely to accept the subtle snub. "This is all new stuff to me. Never was a hundred miles out of New York before. But I'm a regular simp; no blankets, no books, no nothing. I wasn't hep to the fact that you had to have these things. I thought all you had to do was to turn the crank and start her. I don't even know how to get into the dining-room. One thing, though: they've bunked me with a couple of ancient mariners, and some morning I'll be accused of hiding the cork leg."

      She smiled absently, and riffled the pages of the book. She could not very well tell him outright that she did not care to talk.

      ​"Say, I'm not bothering you, am I?" he asked, with genuine apprehension.

      "Indeed, no."

      She closed the book resignedly and looked straight into William's face. Naturally the point of focus was his eye. And she liked the pair of them instantly. The whites were as blue-white as skimmed milk; and she could not recollect seeing anything bluer than the iris. There was something at once rugged and comical in his features—the pug-nose, the freckles, the shock of red hair, and the outstanding ears. Immediately after this inventory she realized that the ensemble was vaguely familiar.

      "Have I ever met you before?"

      "Not in the hand-shaking sense. But I spoke to you one night at the movie just out of Washington Square. They were running an Egyptian play; camels coming down the desert, and all that Los Angeles stuff."

      "Oh yes; I remember." And she truly did. This was the young man who wanted to see the Orient. And here he was, on the way. She was now genuinely interested. This ship was truly a barge of dreams.

      "And, say," went on William, now that the ice was broken, "you're a school-teacher around the corner from—"

      "School-teacher?" she interrupted. She sat up, her eyes wide; and there was a vague terror in them. William saw it, and a bit of the disillusion returned to sting him. "How did you know ​that?" She had phrased and spoken the question before she realized that it was a tacit admission.

      "Oh, I guessed it," he acknowledged. "You see, it's like this. Every morning and afternoon you go by Burns, Dolan & Co.'s plumbing-shop, where I work. I'm in the cellar, mostly."

      "In the cellar?" she repeated, dazedly.

      "Ye-ah. And as you never came by Saturdays I took it that you were a teacher around the corner. I never saw anything but your feet—"

      "My feet?" She was growing more and more bewildered. Was the man insane?

      "Maybe I'm bulling the story. Anyhow, it was like this." He gained confidence as he went along. The terror in her eyes died away and vanished completely as he described his impersonal observations from the cellar window; and when he reached the climax—her passing from starboard to port while he stood in the waist—she СКАЧАТЬ