He had been complaining of the life they had been leading. “I’m sick o’ this. Sick o’ the whole rotten bus’ness. Sick o’ doin’ time in this dang pen, like a convic’.” The boat was as hot as an ironclad, with her metal fittings and cement deck; but if “Shine” and Sturton went into the pierhouse with their fruit, they would have to divide it with the other members of the crew; and they had elected to endure the heat rather than lose the apples. “Turk” knuckled the end of his crooked nose, turned over his apple with deliberation, and crunched off a fresh bite. “Whasmatterith it?” he asked thickly. “It’s rotten!” “Shine” growled. “_Rotten!_ That’s what’s the matter with it. It’s too much scrubbin’ brasses--an’ stan’in’ watches--an’ playin’ footy dominoes--an’ havin’ nuthin’ to do.” “It’s better ’n truckin’,” Sturton said--remembering the laborious days he had spent hooking packing-cases and hoisting bales. “It’s the easiest money _I_ ever made.” [Illustration: “_Over yuh go now!_” See page 80] “Money! What’s the use o’ money when yuh can’t blow ’t in?” It was the day after pay-day, and “Shine” had his pocket full. “I’d sooner be deckin’ on three a week.” In the course of his varied career as boot-black, wharf-rat, Bowery boy and member of the “Con. Scully Association,” he had once held a “spring line” on a Coney Island excursion boat. He remembered the cool breeze that had blown in a porthole of the forward cabin when the deckhands sat playing pedro there, of an afternoon. He remembered midnights on the Bowery, when the boat had been tied up to her pier, and he had been free ashore with his month’s wages in his pocket. “Yuh weren’t chained up to a doghouse like this, all day an’ night,” he said. Sturton grunted, unconvinced. “Shine” chewed and swallowed sullenly, until his little puckered eyes set in the open stare of a cow revolving its cud. He smiled. He followed that expression with a scowl and bit into his apple; and, the memory of strong drink being a thirst in his mouth, the mild cider-juice of the bruised fruit came as an insipid aggravation to a longing palate. He flung the apple overboard. “If it wasn’t fer th’ ol’ woman,” he said, “I’d chuck the damn job.” Sturton’s jaw stopped. Whenever he had a nightmare, he dreamed that he was discharged from the department. “What’d yuh _do_?” “Do?” “Shine” cried. “I’d do anythin’. I’d go an’ make a pitch on Coney fer the summer.” “Make a what?” “Take a front--set up a show--fake ’em, fake ’em! All the suckers ain’t been stung yet.... An’ if I didn’t have the money fer that, I’d go boostin’ fer a start. I had fifteen boosters ’n under me onct. Youse guys that think th’ on’y way to collar the cush is to go sweat fer it, like niggers--yuh make me tired!” “Turk” shook his head darkly. “This ’s good enough fer mine.”