JOHNNY--[With a grin.] Captain of a coal barge.

THE POSTMAN--[Laughing.] Some job! Well, s'long.

JOHNNY--S'long. I'll see he gets it. [The POSTMAN goes out. JOHNNY
scrutinizes the letter.] You got good eyes, Larry. Where's it from?

LARRY--[After a glance.] St. Paul. That'll be in Minnesota, I'm
thinkin'. Looks like a woman's writing, too, the old divil!
JOHNNY--He's got a daughter somewheres out West, I think he told me
once. [He puts the letter on the cash register.] Come to think of it, I
ain't seen old Chris in a dog's age. [Putting his overcoat on, he comes
around the end of the bar.] Guess I'll be gettin' home. See you
to-morrow.

LARRY--Good-night to ye, boss. [As JOHNNY goes toward the street door,
it is pushed open and CHRISTOPHER CHRISTOPHERSON enters. He is a short,
squat, broad-shouldered man of about fifty, with a round,
weather-beaten, red face from which his light blue eyes peer
short-sightedly, twinkling with a simple good humor. His large mouth,
overhung by a thick, drooping, yellow mustache, is childishly
self-willed and weak, of an obstinate kindliness. A thick neck is
jammed like a post into the heavy trunk of his body. His arms with
their big, hairy, freckled hands, and his stumpy legs terminating in
large flat feet, are awkwardly short and muscular. He walks with a
clumsy, rolling gait. His voice, when not raised in a hollow boom, is
toned down to a sly, confidential half-whisper with something vaguely
plaintive in its quality. He is dressed in a wrinkled, ill-fitting dark
suit of shore clothes, and wears a faded cap of gray cloth over his mop
of grizzled, blond hair. Just now his face beams with a too-blissful
happiness, and he has evidently been drinking. He reaches his hand out
to JOHNNY.]

CHRIS--Hello, Yohnny! Have drink on me. Come on, Larry. Give us drink.
Have one yourself. [Putting his hand in his pocket.] Ay gat
money--plenty money.

JOHNNY--[Shakes CHRIS by the hand.] Speak of the devil. We was just
talkin' about you.

LARRY--[Coming to the end of the bar.] Hello, Chris. Put it there.
[They shake hands.]

CHRIS--[Beaming.] Give us drink.

JOHNNY--[With a grin.] You got a half-snootful now. Where'd you get it?

CHRIS--[Grinning.] Oder fallar on oder barge--Irish fallar--he gat
bottle vhiskey and we drank it, yust us two. Dot vhiskey gat kick, by
yingo! Ay yust come ashore. Give us drink, Larry. Ay vas little drunk,
not much. Yust feel good. [He laughs and commences to sing