s shop,
drinking and arguing. The day was already advanced, the active, busy
world without summoned them urgently to duty, at noon their ship would
cast off her moorings and steam majestically out to sea, and yet the
four firemen sat idly in the evil-smelling den, noisy in drunken
argument--all but one man, a big, athletic-looking fellow, who drank in
sullen silence. Occasionally one of them would stop and glance furtively
in the direction of the street, as if apprehensive that an unwelcome
visitor might suddenly put in an appearance.

But no one disturbed them, not even Schmalz, the proprietor of the
place, a fat, tousled-headed German, who found his customers too
profitable to quarrel with. As fast as bottles were emptied, he replaced
them, and that he sold liquor without going through the formalities of
procuring a license was evident from his catlike movements, the absence
of any outward signs of the clandestine traffic, and his extreme care to
keep the inner room and its occupants well secluded from observation.

The outer shop was typical of the many nautical stores of its kind
scattered along New York's waterfront. It contained everything a sailor
needs, from yellow oilskins, thick woolen socks, and blue jerseys to
fried herrings, pickles, and mustard plasters. The atmosphere was heavy
with an agglomeration of different and conflicting smells--fish, tar,
paint, garbage, and stale tobacco. From time to time customers dropped
in, and Schmalz, shrewd and urbane, exercised his talents inducing them
to buy, the while keeping one cautious eye on his open money-drawer, the
other on his boisterous patrons in the inner room.

From the street came refreshing whiffs of salty air and the roar of
heavy traffic rolling along the busy thoroughfare. Trucks groaning and
creaking under mountains of merchandise, cabs filled with travelers and
piled high with baggage, slowly threading their way in and out to trains
and steamers, rickety horse-cars, crowded to the guard-rails, hucksters'
push-carts, piled high with decaying fruit, bewildered immigrants, fresh
from the Old World, nimble commuters from the suburbs hurrying to and
from the ferries--all these, men, horses, and vehicles were tangled up
in seeming hopeless confusion. Along the water's edge, where the
four-mile line of docks sheltered the world's shipping, arose a forest
of ship-masts, with here and there gigantic funnels of ocean liners,
belching smoke as they made ready