Sonnie-Boy's PeopleConnolly, James B. (James Brendan)
General
Sonnie-Boy's People
Connolly, James B. (James Brendan)
Sea stories; Short stories, American
Well, the money values of that Tangarine place had me mesmerized, and
when my time ran out a few weeks later I settles up with the paymaster
and stands by to go over the side with my bag. The skipper he says:
"Killorin, I'll be over here by'n'by and take you off. And you'll be
glad to come, I'll wager." And I says, "Thank you, sir, but this is the
dolsee far nanity country for me. With the number o' gold pieces I got
in my pants pocket I oughter be able to pass the rest o' my days here,"
and with my big ticket and my bag I hit the beach in Tangarine,
intendin' to go straight to the palace and get chummy with the new
President first thing.
But I never got so far as the palace. Not that time. About a
quarter-mile up from the beach was a joyous-lookin' hotel with shaded
verandas all 'round and a banana grove in the yard, and on a second look
a _cantina_ shinin' with mirrors and glasses and colored bottles on the
ground floor, and on another look spacious-lookin' suites o' rooms such
as were befittin' to _senors_ of wealth and leisure on the floor above.
And over these premises I cast one sailor-like view, and through the
for'ard gangway of that glass-mounted _cantina_ I hove my clothes-bag
and myself followed after. There was also a roulette wheel, which didn't
hurt the looks of the place either.
I felt so right to home that I anchored right there--oh, three or four
or five or six days; maybe it was two weeks; but anyway--all that don't
matter--when I steadied down so's to reason like the man o' sense my
skipper always used to say I was at bottom, I was down on the beach and
it was early in the mornin', and I was watchin' a lemon-colored sun
trying to rise out of the smooth Caribbean sea, and I was wonderin'
where it was I'd mislaid my clothes-bag. I could account for everythin'
but my clothes-bag. But that don't matter either now. I never saw it
again.
And while I sat there, not feelin' just like a high-score gun-captain
after target-practice, I hears a light step behind me, and pretty soon I
could feel an eye looking me over, and by'n'by a voice said: "A ver-ry
fine good morning, sir."
"Is it?" I says, and I looks up to see who the cheerful party is. And
there was a good-lookin', well-dressed, young, dark-complected chap,
with a little bamboo cane which he kept stickin' into the sand.
And he looks at me again and says, plainly pleased and yet a little sad,
too: "The Blues are in." And I says: "That so? Since when?" And he says:
"Since last nigh-it. You did not hear, the revoloo-shee-onn?"
And I says: "I didn't--I must 'a' been takin' a nap." But I guessed it
was a good thing; leastways they couldn't be any worse than the Reds--or
was it the Yellow chaps were in last?
"No Yellow in Tangarine," he says.
"Ha, ha!" I says--"an authority."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account