Delphi Complete Works of Thorne Smith (Illustrated), page 288
I carefully placed my shovel against the wheelbarrow and seating myself upon a stump prepared to listen to my companion. He was a chief of many cruises and for some unaccountable reason had fixed on me as being a suitable recipient for his discourse. One more hash mark on his arm would have made him look like a convict. I listened and in the meanwhile many mounds of sand urgently in need of shoveling remained undisturbed. Upon this sand I occasionally cast a reflective and apprehensive eye. The chief, noticing this, nudged me in the ribs with an angular elbow.
“Don’t mind that, sonny,” he said, “I’ll pump the fear-o’-God into the heart of any P.O. what endeavors to disturb you. Trust me.”
I did.
“Now getting back to this mermaid,” he began in a confidential voice, “what I say as I didn’t claim to have saw. It happened this way and what I’m telling you, sonny, is the plain, unvarnished facts of the case, take ’em or leave ’em as you will. They happened and I’m here to tell the whole world so.”
“I have every confidence in you, chief,” I replied mildly.
“It is well you have,” he growled, scanning my face suspiciously. “It’s well you have, you louse.”
“Why, chief,” I exclaimed in an aggrieved voice, “isn’t that rather an unappetizing word to apply to a fellow creature?”
“Mayhap, young feller,” he replied, “mayhap. I ain’t no deep sea dictionary diver, I ain’t, but all this has got nothing to do with what I was about to tell you. It all happened after this manner, neither no more nor no less.”
He cleared his throat and gazed with undisguised hostility across the parade ground. Thus he began:
“It was during the summer of 1888, some thirty odd years ago,” quoth he. “I was a bit young then, but never such a whey face as you, certainly not.”
“Positively,” said I, in hearty agreement.
“At that time,” he continued, not noticing my remark, “I was resting easy on a soft job between cruises as night watchman on one of them P.O. docks at Dover. The work warn’t hard, but it was hard enough. I would never have taken it had it not been for the unpleasant fact that owing to some little trouble I had gotten into at one of the pubs my wife was in one of her nasty, brow-beating moods. At these times the solitude and the stars together with the grateful companionship of a couple of buckets of beer was greatly to be preferred to my little old home. So I took the job and accordingly spent my nights sitting with my back to a pile, my legs comfortably stretched out along the rim of the dock and a bucket of beer within easy reach.”
“Could anything be fairer than that?” said I.
“Nothing,” said he, and continued. “Well, one night as I was sitting there looking down in the water as a man does when his mind is empty and his body well disposed, I found myself gazing down into two glowing pools that weren’t the reflections of stars. Above these two flecks of light was perched a battered old leghorn hat after the style affected in the music halls of those days. Floating out back of this hat on the water was a long wavery coil of filmy hair, the face was shaded, but two long slim arms were thrust out of the water toward me, and following these arms down a bit I was shocked and surprised to find that further than the hat the young lady below me was apparently innocent of garments. Now I believe in going out with the boys when the occasion demands and making a bit of a time of it, but my folks have always been good, honest church people and believers in good, strong, modest clothing and plenty of ’em. I have always followed their example.”
“Reluctantly and at a great distance,” said I.
“Not at all,” said he and continued. “So when I sees the condition the young lady was in I was naturally very much put out and I didn’t hesitate telling her so.
“‘Go home,’ says I, ‘and put your clothes on. You ought to be ashamed of yourself — a great big girl like you.’
“‘Aw, pipe down, old grizzle face,’ says she; ‘wot have you got in the bucket?’ And if you will believe me she began raising herself out of the water. ‘Give me some,’ says she.
“‘Stop,’ I cries out exasperated; ‘stop where you are; you’ve gone far enough. For shame.’
“‘I’ll come all the way out,’ says she, laughing, ‘unless you give me some of wot you got in that bucket.’
“‘Shame,’ I repeated, ‘ain’t you got no sense of decency?’
“‘None wot so ever,’ she replied, ‘but I’m awfully thirsty. Gimme a drink or out I’ll come.’
“Now you can see for yourself that I couldn’t afford to have a woman in her get-up sitting around with me on the end of a dock, being married as I was and my folks all good honest church folks, and bright moon shining in the sky to boot, so I was just naturally forced to give in to the brazen thing and reach her down the bucket, a full one at that. It came back empty and she was forwarder than ever.
“‘Say,’ she cries out, swimming around most exasperatingly, ‘you’re a nice old party. What do your folks know you by?’
“I told her my name was none of her business and that I was a married man and that I wished she’d go away and let me go on with my night watching.
“‘I’m married too,’ says she, in a conversational tone, ‘to an awful mess. You’re pretty fuzzy, but I’d swap him for you any day. Come on into the sea with me and we’ll swim down to Gold Fish Arms and stick around until we get a drink. I know lots of the boys down there. There ain’t no liquor dealers where I come from,’ and with this if you will believe me she flips a bucket full of water into my lap with the neatest little scale spangled tail you ever seen.
“‘No,’ says I, ‘my mind’s made up. I ain’t agoing to go swimming around with no semi-stewed, altogether nude mermaid. It ain’t right. It ain’t Christian.’
“‘I got a hat,’ says she reflectively, ‘and I ain’t so stewed but wot I can’t swim. Wot do you think of that hat? One of the boys stole it from his old woman and gave it to me. Come on, let’s take a swim.’
“‘No,’ says I, ‘I ain’t agoing.’
“‘Just ‘cause I ain’t all dolled up in a lot of clothes?’ says she.
“‘Partly,’ says I, ‘and partly because you are a mermaid. I ain’t agoing messing around through the water with no mermaid. I ain’t never done it and I ain’t agoing to begin it now.’
“‘If I get some clothes on and dress all up pretty, will you go swimming with me then?’ she asks pleadingly.
“‘Well that’s another thing,’ says I, noncommittal like.
“‘All right,’ says she, ‘gimme something out of that other bucket and I’ll go away. Come on, old sweetheart,’ and she held up her arms to me.
“Well, I gave her the bucket and true to form she emptied it. Then she began to argue and plead with me until I nearly lost an ear.
“‘No,’ I yells at her, ‘I ain’t agoing to spend the night arguing with a drunken mermaid. Go away, now; you said you would.’
“‘All right, old love,’ she replies good-naturedly, ‘but I’ll see you again some time. I ain’t ever going home again. I hate it down there.’ And off she swims in an unsteady manner in the direction of the Gold Fish Arms. She was singing and shouting something terrible.
“‘Oh, bury me not on the lonesome prairie
Where the wild coyotes howl o’er me,’
was the song she sang and I wondered where she had ever picked it up.
“Well,” continued the chief, “to cast a sheep shank in a long line, these visits kept up every evening until I was pretty near drove distracted. Along she’d come about sun-down and stick around devilin’ me and drinking up all my grog. After a while she began calling for gin and kept threatening me until I just had to satisfy her. She also made me buy her a brush and comb, a mouth organ and a pair of spectacles, together with a lot of other stuff on the strength of the fact that if I refused she would make a scene. In this way that doggon mermaid continually kept me broke, for my wage warn’t enough to make me heavy and I had my home to support.
“‘Don’t you ever go home?’ I asked her one night.
“‘No,’ she replied, ‘I ain’t ever going back home. I don’t like it down there. There ain’t no liquor dealers.’
“‘But your husband,’ exclaims I. ‘What of him?’
“‘I know,’ says she, ‘but I don’t like him and I’m off my baby, too. It squints,’ says she.
“‘But all babies squint,’ says I.
“‘Mine shouldn’t,’ says she. ‘It ain’t right.’
“Then one night an awful thing happened. My wife came down to the dock to find out how I spent all my money. It was a bright moon-lit night and this lost soul of a mermaid was hanging around, particularly jilled and entreating. I was just in the act of passing her down the gin flask and she was saying to me, ‘Come on down, old love; you know you’re crazy about me,’ when all of a sudden I heard an infuriated shriek behind me and saw my wife leaning over the dock shaking an umbrella at this huzzy of a mermaid. Oh, son,” broke off the Chief, “if you only knew the uncontrolled violence and fury of two contending women. Nothing you meet on shipboard will ever equal it. I was speechless, rocked in the surf of a tumult of words. And in the midst of it all what should happen but the husband of the mermaid pops out of the water with a funny little bit of a merbaby in his arms.
“‘Go home at once, sir,’ screams my wife, ‘and put on your clothes.’
“‘I will,’ he shouts back, ‘if my wife will come along with me.’
“He was a weazened up little old man with a crooked back. Not very prepossessing. I could hardly blame his wife.
“‘So that bit of stuff is your wife, is it?’ cries out my old lady, and with that she began telling him her past.
“‘I know it,’ says the little old merman at last, almost crying; ‘I know it, but I ain’t got no control over her whatsoever. I’ve been trying to get her to come home for the last fortnight, but she just won’t leave off going around with the sailors. The whole beach is ashamed of her. It’s general talk down below. What can I do? The little old coral house is going to wrack and ruin and the baby ain’t been properly took care of since she left. What am I going to do, madam? What am I going to do? I’m well nigh distracted.’
“But his wife was too taken up with the gin bottle to pay much heed to his pitiful words. She just kept flirting around in the water and singing snatches of bad sailor songs she’d picked up around the docks.
“‘Take her home,’ said my wife, ‘take her home, you weakling, by force.’
“‘But I can’t when she’s in this condition. I got a child in my arms.’
“‘Give me the baby,’ said my wife, with sudden determination. ‘I’ll take care of it until to-morrow night when you can come back here and get it.’
“He handed the flopping little thing up to my wife and turned to the mermaid.
“‘Lil,’ he says to her, holding out his arms to her, ‘Lil, will you come home?’
“Lil swims up to him then and takes him by the arm and looks at him for a long time.
“‘Kiss me, Archie,’ she says suddenly, ‘I don’t mind if I do,’ and flipping a couple of pounds of water upon the both of us on the pier, she pulls him under the water laughing and that’s the last I saw of either of them. Now I ain’t asaying as I have ever seen a mermaid mind you,” continued the chief, “but what I do say is that if any man has ever seen one I’m the man.”
“I understand perfectly,” said I, “and what, chief, became of the baby?”
“Oh, the baby,” said the chief, thoughtful like; “the baby — well, you see, about that baby—” he gazed searchingly around the landscape for a moment before replying.
“Oh, the baby,” he said suddenly, as if greatly relieved, “well, my wife took the baby home and kept it in the bathtub for a couple of days after which she returned it in person to its father. She made me give up my job. It did squint, though,” said the chief, as he got up to go, “ever so little.”
I turned to my shovel.
“But I ain’t saying as I have ever seen a mermaid,” he said, turning back in his tracks, “all I’m saying is that—”
“I know, Chief,” I said wearily, “I fully appreciate your delicacy and fairness. You’re not the man to make any false claims.”
“No, sir, not I,” he replied, as he walked slowly away.
August 5th. In order to distract Mr. Fogerty’s attention from his love affair and in a sort of desperate endeavor to win him back to me I took him away on my last liberty with me. Fogerty doesn’t come under the heading of a lap dog, but through some technical quibble I managed to smuggle him into the subway. All he did there was to knock over one elderly lady and lick her face effusively when he had gotten her down. This resulted in a small but complete panic. For the most part, however, he sat quietly on my lap and sniffed at those around him. At last we reached Washington Square, whereupon I proceeded to take Mr. Fogerty around and show him off to my friends. He was well received, but his heart wasn’t with us. It was far away in City Island.
“For the most part, however, he sat quietly on my lap and sniffed”
At one restaurant we ran into a female whose hair was nearly as short as Fogerty’s. She was holding forth on the Silence of the Soul vs. the Love Impulse, the cabbage or some other plant. Fogerty listened to her for a while and then bit her. He did it quietly, but I thought it best to take him away.
After supper we went up to another place for coffee, a fine little place for sailormen, situated on the south side of the square. Here we were received with winning cordiality and Fogerty was given a fried egg, a dish of which he is passionately fond. But even here he got into trouble by putting one of his great feet through a Ukulele, which isn’t such a terrible thing to do, except in certain places.
Getting back to the station was a crisp little affair. Fogerty and myself rose at five and went forth to the shuttle. The subway was a madhouse. We shuttled ourselves to death. At 5.30 we were at the Times Square end of the shuttle, at 5.45 we were at Williams, at 6 o’clock we had somehow managed to get ourselves on the east side end of the shuttle, five minutes later we were back at Times Square, ten minutes later we were over on the east side once more. At 6.15 I lost Fogerty. At 6.25 I was back at Times Square. “Hello, buddy,” said the guard, “you back again? Here’s your dog.”
At 7 o’clock we were at Van Cortlandt Park, at 8 we were at Ninety-sixth Street, 9 o’clock found us laboring up to the gate of the camp, with a written list of excuses that looked like the schedule of a flourishing railroad. It was accepted, much to our surprise.
Aug. 7th. I have a perfectly splendid idea. Of course, like the rest of my ideas it won’t work, but it is a perfectly splendid idea for all that. I got it while traveling on the ferry boat from New York to Staten Island — the longest sea voyage I have had since I joined the Navy. On this trip, strangely thrilling to a sailor in my situation, but which was suffered with bored indifference by the amphibious commuters that infest this Island in those waters, I saw a number of ships so gaudily and at the same time so carelessly painted that any God-fearing skipper of the Spanish Main would positively have refused to command. Captain Kidd himself would have blushed at the very sight of this ribald fleet and turned away with a devout imprecation.
This was my first experience with camouflage, and it impressed me most unfavorably. An ordinary ship on a grumbling ocean is difficult enough as it is to establish friendly relations with, but when trigged out in this manner — why serve meals at all, say I. Nevertheless it occurred to me that it would not be a bad idea at all to camouflage one’s hammock in such a manner that it took upon itself the texture and appearance of the bulkhead of the barracks in which it was swung. In this manner a sailor could sleep undisturbed for three weeks if he so desired (and he does), without ever being technically considered a deserter.
One could elaborate this idea still further and make one’s sea bag look like a clump of poison ivy, so that no inspecting officer would ever care to become intimate with its numerous defects in cleanliness. One might even go so far as to camouflage oneself into a writing desk so that when visiting the “Y” or the “K-C” and unexpectedly required to sing one would not be forced to rise and scream impatiently and threateningly “Dear Mother Mine” or “Break the News to Mother.” Not that these songs are not things of rare beauty in themselves, but after a day on the coal pile one’s lungs have been sufficiently exercised to warrant relief. This is merely an idea of mine, and now that everybody knows about it I guess there isn’t much use in going ahead with it.
Aug. 8th. “This guide i-s l-e-f-t!” shouted the P.O., and naturally I looked around to see what had become of the poor fellow.
“Keep your head straight. Eyes to the front! Don’t move! Whatcha lookin’ at?”
“I was looking for the guide that was left,” says I timidly. “It seems to me that he is always being left.”
“Company dismissed,” said the P.O. promptly, showing a wonderful command of the situation under rather trying circumstances, for the boo-hoo that went up from the men after my remark defied all restraints of discipline.
“Say, Biltmore,” says the P.O. to me a moment later, “I’m going to see if I can’t get you shipped to Siberia if you pull one of them bum jokes again. You understand?”
“But I wasn’t joking,” I replied innocently.
“Aw go on, you sly dog,” said he, nudging me in the ribs, and for some strange reason he departed in high good humor, leaving me in a greatly mystified frame of mind.
Speaking of getting shipped, I have just written a very sad song in the style of the old sentimental ballads of the Spanish war days. It’s called “The Sailor’s Farewell,” and I think Polly will like it. I haven’t polished it up yet, but here it is as it is:
A sailor to his mother came and said, “Oh, mother dear, I got to go away and fight the war. So, mother, don’t you cry too hard, and don’t you have no fear When you find that I’m not sticking ‘round no more.”
