Fo'castle Waltz

And he lifted the hat and carefully set it on my head. I turned to the mirror. That settled it. That hat had fitted Philip roomily but it just perched on the top of my dome. I have an unusually large head—not the melon type, I mean—just a large skull, and when I need a haircut which I usually do—I did then—I have quite a headsize. I'm not boasting.

Anyway, I bought the broad black sombrero I had put on my head when I first came into the shop and I paid off, and opened that door again forgetting about the swing of it and I got us both out quick, before Philip could give me a literal translation of what that nervous old woman said.

We ate our supper in a little ramshackle shed of a restaurant. The man who ran the place and cooked on a small stove in back of the counter served us grudgingly.

He had greeted me as we came in and surprised me so I had not responded—it was that black sombrero he was talking to, not me. I concluded he must have thought I was native. We had a couple of fried eggs sans steak.

Then Philip and I walked along the dark main street for a little while. Every time we'd come to one of those alleys which led down to the streets with the houses, he would find some reason to linger and stall around, kicking the unpaved walk with his heels. Finally, he broke down and frankly said he'd like to go see some ladies. He had not been able to get ashore last night, and I told him I had and that I had a big time and guessed I'd go back to the ship early. I wished him good luck, warned him against that bony French dame, and walked back toward the ship alone.

Back along the darkened streets, time and again Argentinians would give me a nod and a buenas noches—I must have reminded them of some well-known characters around that town with my face in the shadow of the broad-brimmed sombrero. In daylight there were quite a few sloppy-looking guys I noticed whom I might have been mistaken for. They, too, wore suits of some dark material that had never been pressed and stiff broad-brimmed hats. It must have been about ten when I climbed up on the ship. Our haggling with that old woman had taken longer than I thought.

As I walked along the river bank toward our ship she had looked sort of staunch and almost homey—it was good to know I had a bunk on the old tub. The old fellow who had been employed to sit smoking his pipe on the top of our gangplank as watchman was all for putting me off the ship, until I took my new hat off and he saw that no Argentinian ever wore a mustache and beard so thin and sparse. Undoubtedly, I must be a member of the crew. I was a Nord Americano, if not worse. I turned aft to the fo'castle to see if any of the gang were around—I wanted to show off. It seemed everyone was ashore except a few of the old fellows who had their bunk curtains drawn. I stopped to light a cigarette in the passage and almost yelped when my match lit up old Pat, the oiler, standing there propped up against the bulkhead, staring at his cabin door, his eyes glassy, and his cabin key held clutched, stabbing straight out into space. He evidently had been jabbing at his keyhole for some time and couldn't make it. His eyes rolled toward me.

"What's the matter, Pat? Ain't you feeling right?" I asked.

A thin drool of saliva bubbled from his stiff lips as he tried to say something. He gave that up finally and spoke from somewhere deep inside of him like a ventriloquist.

"Uper—er up—huh? Uper er up— Can' get th' gar-damn key in 'er."

I took the key from his stiffly curled fingers and opened the oiler's cabin. Pat waved me aside, pushed back against the bulkhead, and then went slowly forward on the momentum of his push. He leaned far back with a slight list as he went by, though his uncreased felt hat kept an even keel. I looked in after he'd landed in his cabin sprawling prone on his bunk.

"O.K.? You all right, Pat? Want me to get something?"

His head lifted slowly and his eyes stared at me as if he'd seen me for the first time. Then he blinked and growled through his drooling mouth.

"Ger ra 'ell arra 'ere, ya gar damn furriner. Warra 'ell ya doin' on 'is ship? 'Er 'merican ship—I'm er 'merican—"

And as he tried to pull his wandering lips into a snarl and comer his eyebrows into a vicious righteous scowl to say something else, I quietly closed his door and went forward to my cabin. I wondered if I ought not to get me one of those small American flags one sees stuck in Washington's Birthday cakes, and wear it tucked into the hatband of this new black sombrero the way people wear feathers at big football games to show what side they're on.