se 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 ... "an' w'en you come back with th' booze, we'll see to it that
you get took out to the transport with us, all right ... won't we,
boys?"

"--betcher boots we will."

* * * * *

"God, but this is like heaven to me," exclaimed the barber, as he tilted
up his bottle, while the two others stood about him, to keep him from
being seen. The three of them drank their bottles of whiskey as if it
was water.

"That saved me life...."

"An' mine, too. You go to Manila wit' us, all right,--kid!"

* * * * *

Toward dusk came the sharp command for the men to march aboard the
coaster that had drawn up for them. The boys kept their word. They
loaded me down with their accoutrements to carry. I marched up the
gangway with them, and we were off to the _Indiana_.

I was the first, almost, to scamper aboard the waiting transport in the
gathering dusk ... and, to make sure of staying aboard, I hurried down
one ladder after the other, till I reached the heavy darkness of the
lowermost hold. Having nothing to do but sleep, I stumbled over some
oblong boxes, climbed onto one, and composed myself for the night, using
a coil of rope for a pillow.

I woke to find a grey patch of day streaming down the ladder-way. My
eyes soon adjusted themselves to the obscurity.

And then it was that I gave a great, scared leap. And with difficulty I
held myself back from crying out.

Those curious oblong boxes amon