Part 90

“Then perhaps your general manager, who was in that pilot-house, had an iron gizzard inside him. Most of them Wall Street fellows do have!” said the skipper, with sarcasm.

“There's something going on in the steamboat business that I can't understand,” declared Mayo. “It's high up; it hasn't to do with us chaps, who have to take the kicks. Fogg brought a man aboard the old Nequasset, and he didn't bring along a good explanation to go with that man. I have been wondering ever since how it happened that Fogg got to be general manager of the Vose line so almighty sudden.”

“Them high financiers play a big game, mate. And if you happened to be a marked card in it, they'd tear you up and toss you under the table without thinking twice. If you'll take a tip from me, you lay low and do a lot of thinking while Uncle Zoradus does his scouting. What are you going to do when you get to Norfolk?”

“I haven't thought.”

“Well, the both of us better think, and think hard, mate. If the United States is really after you there'll be a sharp eye at every knot-hole. I can't afford to let 'em get in a crack at me for what I've done.”

“I'll jump overboard outside the capes before I'll put you in wrong,” asserted Mayo, with deep feeling.

That night the captain of the tug took a trick at the wheel in person.

His guest lay on the transom, smoking the skipper's spare pipe, and racking his mind for ways and means. After a time he was conscious that the captain was growling a bit of a song to relieve the tedium of his task. He sang the same words over and over--a tried and true Chesapeake shanty:

“Oh, I sailed aboard a lugger, and I shipped aboard a scow, And I sailed aboard a peanut-shell that had a razor bow. Needle in a haystack, brick into a wall! A nigger man in Norfolk, he ain't no 'count at all!”

Mayo rolled off the transom and went to the captain's side. “There's more truth than poetry in that song of yours, sir,” he said. “You have given me an idea. A nigger in Norfolk doesn't attract much attention. And I haven't got to be one of the black ones, either. Don't you suppose there's something aboard here I can use to stain my face with?”

“My cook is a great operator as a tattoo artist.”

“I don't think I want to make the disguise permanent, sir,” stated the young man, with a smile.

“What I mean is, he may have something in his kit that he can use to paint you with. What's your idea--stay there? I'm afraid they'll nail you.” >

“I'll stay there just long enough to ship before the mast on a schooner. There isn't time to think up any better plan just now. Anything to keep out of sight until I can make up my mind about what's really best to be done.”

“We'll have that cook up here,” offered the captain. “He's safe.”

The cook took prompt and professional interest in the matter. “Sure!” he said. “I've got a stain that will sink in and stay put for a long time, if no grease paint is used. Only you mustn't wash your face.”

“There's no danger of a fellow having any inducement to do that when he's before the mast on a schooner in these days,” declared the tug captain, dryly.

An hour later, Captain Boyd Mayo, late of the crack liner Montana, was a very passable mulatto, his crisply curling hair adding to the disguise. He swapped his neat suit of brown with a deck-hand, and received some particularly unkempt garments.

The next night, when the tug was berthed at the water station, he slipped off into the darkness, as homeless and as disconsolate as an abandoned dog.

XXII ~ SPECIAL BUSINESS OF A PASSENGER

O Ranzo was no sailor, He shipped on board a whaler. O pity Reuben Ran-zo, Ran-zo, boys! O poor old Reuben Ranzo, Ranzo, boys! --Reuben Ranzo.

Captain Mayo kept out of the region of the white lights for some time. He had a pretty wide acquaintance in the Virginia port, and he knew the beaten paths of the steamboating transients, ashore for a bit of a blow.

He lurked in alleys, feeling especially disreputable. He was not at all sure that his make-up was effective. His own self-consciousness convinced him that he was a glaring fraud, whose identity would be revealed promptly to any person who knew him. But while he sneaked in the purlieus of the city several of his 'longshore friends passed him without a second look. One, a second engineer on a Union line freighter, whirled after passing, and came back to him.

“Got a job, boy?”

“No, sir.”

“We need coal-passers on the Drummond. She's in the stream. Come aboard in the morning.”

But it was not according to Mayo's calculation, messing with steamboat men. “Ah doan' conclude ah wants no sech job,” he drawled.

“No, of course you don't want to work, you blasted yaller mutt!” snapped the engineer. He marched on, cursing, and Mayo was encouraged, for the man had given him a thorough looking-over.