an onrushing
locomotive, but it landed on empty air, with Moran around in back of the
Russian, and peering impishly up under his arm. It was like an elephant
worried by a mosquito. Then Moran's lightning right shot out again,
smartly, and seemed just to tap the great hulk on the side of the chin.
A ludicrous look of surprise on Slovatsky's face before he crumpled and
crashed.

This man it was who had Tyler Kamps' admiration. It was more than
admiration. It was nearer adoration. But there was nothing unnatural or
unwholesome about the boy's worship of this man. It was a legitimate
thing, born of all his fatherless years; years in which there had been
no big man around the house who could throw farther than Tyler, and eat
more, and wear larger shoes and offer more expert opinion. Moran
accepted the boy's homage with a sort of surly graciousness.

In Tyler's third week at the Naval Station mumps developed in his
barracks and they were quarantined. Tyler escaped the epidemic but he
had to endure the boredom of weeks of quarantine. At first they took it
as a lark, like schoolboys. Moran's hammock was just next Tyler's. On
his other side was a young Kentuckian named Dabney Courtney. The
barracks had dubbed him Monicker the very first day. Monicker had a
rather surprising tenor voice. Moran a salty bass. And Tyler his
mandolin. The trio did much to make life bearable, or unbearable,
depending on one's musical knowledge and views. The boys all sang a
great deal. They bawled everything they knew, from "Oh, You Beautiful
Doll" and "Over There" to "The End of a Perfect Day." The latter, _ad
nauseum_. They even revived "Just Break the News to Mother" and seemed
to take a sort of awful joy in singing its dreary words and mournful
measures. They played everything from a saxophone to a harmonica. They
read. They talked. And they grew so sick of the sight of one another
that they began to snap and snarl.

Sometimes they gathered round Moran and he told them tales they only
half believed. He had been in places whose very names were exotic and
oriental, breathing of sandalwood, and myrrh, and spices and aloes. They
were places over which a boy dreams in books of travel. Moran bared the
vivid tattooing on hairy arms and chest--tattooing representing anchors,
and serpents, and girls' heads, and hearts with arrows stuck through
them. Each mark had its story. A broad-swathed gentleman indeed, Gunner
Moran. He had an easy way with him that