Limekiller!

One place of trade and commerce was open, wide open, anyway as wide open as its swinging doors allowed of: and that was The Fisherman Wharf, LICENSED TO SELL, etc., etc. Proprietor, and even now behind the bar of The Fisherman Wharf, was the justly-famous Lemuel Piggott, sole perpetuator of the grand tradition of the shandygaff. He acknowledged Jack’s entrance with a nod — the current volume of sound inside The Warf made this the most sensible method of communication — and reached down a tall, clean glass. From one cooler he got out a glistening black bottle of Tennant’s Milk Stout, from another he extracted a glistening green bottle of Excelsior Ginger Stout; he opened first one, then the other: then, with infinite dexterity, he poured them both simultaneously, one from each hand, into the one glass.

By this time Jack had bellied up to the bar. Piggott waited until the new customer had become the better by several gills of the lovely mixture before asking the traditional, “Hoew de day, mon?”

Limekiller had scarcely time to make the traditional reply of, “Bless God,” when the man at his right, addressing either nobody or everybody, continued — evidently — a discourse interupted by the last arrival’s arrival.

“An’ one day, me see some-teeng, mon, me see some-teeng hawreed. Me di see eet, mon. Me di see di bloody mon

“Hush up you mout’,” said Piggott.

But the other, a much older fellow, did not hear, perhaps, or did not care, perhaps. “Me di see di blood-dee mon. Me di see he, ah White-MON, ahl cot een pieces ahn ahl blood-dee. Wahn, two, t’ree, de pieces ahv heem dey ahl come togeddah. De mon stahn op befah me, mon. He stahn ahp befah me. Ahl bot wahn piece, mon. He no hahv wahn piece een he side, mon. He side gape, mon, gape w’open. Eet bleed, mon. Eet BLEED!”

And now other faces than the proprietor’s were turned to the narrator. “Hush up you mout, mon!” other voices said, gruff.

Brown man, glass of brown rum in his brown hand. Sweat on his face. Voice rising. “Ahn so me di know, mon. Me di know who eet ees, mon. Eet ees de blood-dee Cop-tain. Eet ees Cop-tain Blood!

Brown man spun around by another Brown man. Brown fist shaken in brown face. “Me say, ‘Hush you mouf, mon!’ Ah else, me gweyn mahsh eet shut fah you — you hyeah?” And a shove which spins the other almost off his balance, careening against the bar. But not spilling the drink. First man saying nothing. Shaking. Sweating.

Limekiller had seen the D.T.s before. Thank God, he had never had them yet. And did not plan to.

He suddenly became aware of a scientific fact: that no one who confined himself to shandygaff could possibly get the D.T.s. Calcium in the milk stout and essential oils in the ginger stout would prevent it. Probably prevent scurvy, too, as well as whidows, felons, proud flesh, catarrh, apoplexy, cachexy, and many another ailment of the eighteenth century.

Which seemed to be the century, at the latest, which he was now living in. Captain Blood, hey? Whoopee.

It was not yet time for the Port Caroline commercial establishment to resume its not-quite-incessant labors. It was time, therefore, for another shandygaff.

The place at his side was now taken up by someone else. Well, the bar was long, the bar was said to be made of rosewood and mahogany: and, if so, it must date from days when Port Caroline enjoyed more activity than Port Caroline did today and had done these forty (at least) years: before the Panama Disease destroyed the bananas and the banana trade. Before cutting without replanting had destroyed the timber trade. Before the building up of the sand bar at the mouth of the Caroline Creek put an end to the carrying- trade with the whole of the Great Central Valley. Before -

Ah well. Port Caroline Town was after all only one of the many places, all over the world, of which it could be said that it had a great future behind it.

Somebody was next to him at the bar. He felt, Limekiller felt, that the someone next to him at the bar was wanting to talk to him. He would have checked his new bar-neighbor out in the mirror, except that he was a facing a well-laid design several feet long by several feet tall of bottles, climbing the wedding-cake-like carven shelves. So, he could either snob it out by not turning to look, or he could risk the chance that the man next to him either did not really want to talk to him, or was maybe wanting to talk unpleasant talk to him: though this, to be sure, seldom happened: But the fact was: some people simply did not want to be looked at.

The matter was almost at once resolved. “Scuse me, sah, you doesn’t mind I ox you ah question?”

It was now permissible to turn and look. The same fisherman who had spin-dizzied the other fisherman. Not, however, seeming inclined to repeat it with Jack. “Fire away, friend,” saidj.

“What you t’ink, sah, ahv de Ahrahwock?”