CAPTAIN: I'll take this now, boys. BRADFORD: No need for anybody to take it, Capt'n. He was dead when we picked him up. CAPTAIN: Dannie Sears was dead when we picked him up. But we brought him back. I'll go on awhile. (_The two men who have been bending over the body rise, stretch to relax, and come into the room._) BRADFORD: (_pushing back his arms and putting his hands on his chest_) Work,--tryin to put life in the dead. CAPTAIN: Where'd you find him, Joe? BRADFORD: In front of this house. Not forty feet out. CAPTAIN: What'd you bring him up here for? (_He speaks in an abstracted way, as if the working part of his mind is on something else, and in the muffled voice of one bending over._) BRADFORD: (_with a sheepish little laugh_) Force of habit, I guess. We brought so many of 'em back up here, (_looks around the room_) And then it was kind of unfriendly down where he was--the wind spittin' the sea onto you till he'd have no way of knowin' he was ashore. TONY: Lucky I was not sooner or later as I walk by from my watch. BRADFORD: You have accommodating ways, Tony. No sooner or later. I wouldn't say it of many Portagees. But the sea (_calling it in to the_ CAPTAIN) is friendly as a kitten alongside the women that live _here_. Allie Mayo--they're _both_ crazy--had that door open (_moving his head toward the big sliding door_) sweepin' out, and when we come along she backs off and stands lookin' at us, _lookin_'--Lord, I just wanted to get him somewhere else. So I kicked this door open with my foot (_jerking his hand toward the room where the_ CAPTAIN _is seen bending over the man_) and got him _away. (under his voice_) If he did have any notion of comin' back to life, he wouldn't a come if he'd seen her. (_more genially_) I wouldn't. CAPTAIN: You know who he is, Joe? BRADFORD: I never saw him before. CAPTAIN: Mitchell telephoned from High Head that a dory came ashore there. BRADFORD: Last night wasn't the _best_ night for a dory. (_to_ TONY, _boastfully_) Not that I couldn't 'a' stayed in one. Some men can stay in a dory and some can't. (_going to the inner door_) That boy's dead, Capt'n. CAPTAIN: Then I'm not doing him any harm. BRADFORD: (_going over and shaking the frame where the boat once swung_) This the first time you ever been in this place, ain't it, Tony? TONY: I never was here before.