Conrad Aiken - Blue Voyage

“It isn’t what you say, it’s how you say it.”

“Sure, when you say that, smile!”

“—a club. A little club, more or less. One little club.”

“I don’t believe I’ll play, but I’ll watch you, if you don’t mind.”

“What you doin’, Susie? Where’s Johnny Cagny?”

“I’m writing my name. This isn’t as good as I can write … Say! Don’t tear my paper!”

“You shouldn’t be in the smoking room, Susie. It’s too rough for you in here. And that little Johnny Cagny, he’s too rough for you too.”

“Jesus! Listen to that screw kicking out! R-r-r-r-r-r-r !”

“—and then I got to New York too late for the boat! Though if I hadn’t stopped for a bath, and to go to the office for some money, I’d have been all right. But those damned agents told me four o’clock in the afternoon. Hell! And there’s my wife, waiting for me all this time in Liverpool … Oh well, it’s all in the day’s work.”

“That’s right … I’ve missed plenty of trains, but never a—”

“ —perpendicular —’

“—sick to death of them. Sixteen days on that damned tanker, and now this bloody thing—”

“—asleep. Are ye asleep, Paddy? Rocked in the bosom of the deep, deep, deep—”

“Ha ha ha.”

“Half seas over. He’ll drink his way to Ireland. It’ll be a dry country by the time he gets there. Oh Paddy dear and did ye hear the news that’s goin’ round —Who’s got anything better than a full house? Oh! SHAN dygaff .”

“—told me about one trip he had, from Tampico to New Orleans, with some Mexican passengers. Indians, you know, those half-breeds. They had a hell of a time. Every time he turned his back, those damned Indians would light a fire on the decks! They’re always making little fires, you know, — just for company, and to warm up a few old coffee grounds in a can. Well, on a tanker full of oil! Gee whiz, man! she’d go up so quick you’d never know what happened. All night they had to watch them—”

“—is that so—”

“—is that so—”

“Aztecs, I suppose those were. Those Aztecs were a wonderful people. Wonderful builders — all just as straight as a die, and according to the points of the compass, and carvings all over everything. They had a high state of civilization.”

“That’s all right, but they were heathen just the same. They sacrificed human beings to the sun.”

“They thought Cortez was a reincarnated sun-god. That’s how he got control over them with so small an army. Damned dirty shame, too. Still, the world has to be civilized.”

“ Why has it?… I don’t believe we’re a bit better than our so-called heathen ancestors.”

“Ah-h-h-h what you talkin’ about!”

“Well, look at Ireland, your own country, full of murders and burnings and treason and God knows what; and look at the Balkans; and look at the way we shoot down strikers, or burn niggers, or the whole bloody world going to war for nothing at all and all lying about it, every man jack of them, pretending there’s something holy about it! Look at the way in England, when they launch a battleship, they have a red-faced Bishop there, or an Archbishop, to consecrate the bloody ship in the name of God for murder! Civilized! You make me sick. The world hasn’t changed a hair for four thousand years.”

“That’s right, too!”

“Hear hear!”

“That’s all very easy to say, but just the same there is some progress. Look at the toothbrush—”

“Ha ha — make the world safe for toothbrushes!”

“Porter! Bring me the car toothbrush please!”

“Yes sir, and when she come back there was a foot sticking out of every berth—”

“Ante, mister.”

“—and when she whispered ‘Sweetheart!’ forty men answered with one voice. ‘Come in, darling! here’s your icky fing!’”

“Ha ha — that’s a good old-timer.”

“ I — can sing — truly rural —”

“Then I was sent out scouting with a Dodge two-seater and a pocket full of cigars — throwing the bull, you know, you have to do it. Finding out what the other companies were up to. A sort of commercial spy, that’s really what it is. I didn’t know a thing about it, but I knew enough to bluff, and before they found me out I knew the game. Gee whiz, I had a stroke of luck once! I was up looking over some old wells — gone dry. They didn’t say anything about it, but the first thing I noticed, right beside one of these wells, was a couple of dead birds — sparrows or something. Gas! That’s what it was. Well, I kept mum, and drove over to a rival company about two miles off, pretending just to drop in for a friendly chat. The first thing I knew, I heard a chap complaining about a gas well on their place—‘It’s a funny thing,’ he said, ‘the way the pressure’s dropped on that well.’ That gave me an idea! I looked up the geological layout — and sure enough, their gas was leaking through our old oil well. And before they knew it, we had it tapped. A stroke of luck, that was! It gave me a lot of pull with the company.”

“That was pretty good! There’s luck in everything—”

“It’s an awful thing to say; and I’m not insultin’ anyone that’s present here; but what I’m tellin’ you is facts and figures … There was three Italians come to New York; and they didn’t speak no English. They went to stay at a boardin’-house — I think it was kept by a Mrs. McCarty. The first night they was there, they woke up hearin’ a great noise in the room beneath, and they was scared … So one of them went to a little knothole there was in the floor, and listened. Now there was three Irishmen playin’ cards in the room beneath, but the Italian couldn’t see nothin’, and all he heard was a voice sayin’—”

“Major Kendall! Major Kendall! Is Major Kendall here?”

“Outside! Outside!”

“Two Scotch? Yes, sir.”

“And a splash.”

“Well, they was so scared they took their bundles and run out of the house; and after a while they come to the Harlem bridge; and when they was halfway across the bridge they come to a dead man lyin’ on his back in the middle of the sidewalk with his throat cut and a knife in his hand—”

“I’ll bet you’ve got an ace. Want to bet?”

“—kiddin’—”

“—and while they was standin’ there lookin’ at the corpse a policeman came up to them— say! listen to this! Are you listenin’?”

“Sure we’re listening.”

“—and says to them, ‘Who done this?’ ‘I drew!’ says the first one, ‘I cut!’ says the second one, ‘I had a hand,’ says the third: so he pinched all the three of them.”

“Ha ha! Some story! Good boy, Paddy!”

“—at the Orpheum, in Boston, two weeks ago, dressed as a woman, with a great big brass padlock hanging down behind, and biting a little Japanese fan — saying he’d been followed right to the stage door by two sailors and a fireman—”

“Have you a little fairy in your home? Well, we had, but he joined the navy!”

“—and this guy went into a saloon in Chicago, leading a tiger on a leash! A big rattlesnake put his head out of his breast pocket, and he slapped it in again. When the tiger wouldn’t lie down, he kicked it on the snout. ‘Say!’ says the bartender. ‘The town you come from must be pretty tough!’ … ‘Tough ! You said a mouthful, bo. That town’s so tough it kicked us fairies out.’”

“Ha ha ha … You know that one about the lonely fairy in Burlington, Vermont, and the alarm clock?… smothered it with kisses! I like that story.”