I kin care for myself,
get me! [Eight bells sound, muffled, vibrating through the steel
walls as if some enormous brazen gong were imbedded in the heart
of the ship. All the men jump up mechanically, fie through the
door silently close upon each other's heels in what is very like a
prisoners lockstep. YANK slaps PADDY on the back.] Our watch, yuh
old Harp! [Mockingly.] Come on down in hell. Eat up de coal dust.
Drink in de heat. It's it, see! Act like yuh liked it, yuh better--
or croak yuhself.
PADDY--[With jovial defiance.] To the divil wid it! I'll not
report this watch. Let thim log me and be damned. I'm no slave the
like of you. I'll be sittin' here at me ease, and drinking, and
thinking, and dreaming dreams.
YANK--[Contemptuously.] Tinkin' and dreamin', what'll that get
yuh? What's tinkin' got to do wit it? We move, don't we? Speed,
ain't it? Fog, dat's all you stand for. But we drive trou dat,
don't we? We split dat up and smash trou--twenty-five knots a
hour! [Turns his back on Paddy scornfully.] Aw, yuh make me sick!
Yuh don't belong! [He strides out the door in rear. Paddy hums to
himself, blinking drowsily.]
[Curtain]
SCENE II
SCENE--Two days out. A section of the promenade deck. MILDRED
DOUGLAS and her aunt are discovered reclining in deck chairs.
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