This time it was the great little Bill who had to be dragged off. McGarver held him, kicking and yammering, his mild mustache bristling like a battling cat's, till the next round, when Pete was knocked out by a clumsy whirlwind of fists.
He lay on the deck, with Bill standing over him and demanding, "What's my name, heh?"
"I t'ink it's Bill now, all right, Wrennie, old hoss--Bill, old hoss," groaned Pete.
He was permitted to sneak off into oblivion.
Bill Wrenn went below. In the dark passage by the fidley he fell to tremorous weeping. But the brackish hydrant water that stopped his nose-bleed saved him from hysterics. He climbed to the top deck, and now he could again see his brother pilgrim, the moon.
The stiffs and bosses were talking excitedly of the fight. Tim rushed up to gurgle: "Great, Bill, old man! You done just what I'd 'a' done if he'd cussed me. I told you Pete was a bluffer."
"Git out," said Satan.
Tim fled.
Morton came up, looked at Bill Wrenn, pounded him on the shoulder, and went off to his mattress. The other stiffs slouched away, but McGarver and Satan were still discussing the fight.
Snuggling on the hard black pile of tarpaulins, Bill talked to them, warmed to them, and became Mr. Wrenn. He announced his determination to wander adown every shining road of Europe.
"Nice work." "Sure." "You'll make a snappy little ole globe-trotter." "Sure; ought to be able to get the slickest kind of grub for four bits a day." "Nice work," Satan interjected from time to time, with smooth irony. "Sure. Go ahead. Like to hear your plans."
McGarver broke in: "Cut that out, Marvin. You're a `Satan' all right. Quit your kidding the little man. He's all right. And he done fine on the job last three-four days."
Lying on his mattress, Bill stared at the network of the ratlines against the brilliant sky. The crisscross lines made him think of the ruled order-blanks of the Souvenir Company.
"Gee!" he mused, "I'd like to know if Jake is handling my work the way we--they--like it. I'd like to see the old office again, and Charley Carpenter, just for a couple of minutes. Gee! I wish they could have seen me put it all over Pete to-night! That's what I'm going to do to the blooming Englishmen if they don't like me."
The S.S. Merian panted softly beside the landing-stage at Birkenhead, Liverpool's Jersey City, resting in the sunshine after her voyage, while the cattle were unloaded. They had encountered fog-banks at the mouth of the Mersey River. Mr. Wrenn had ecstatically watched the shores of England--England!--ride at him through the fog, and had panted over the lines of English villas among the dunes. It was like a dream, yet the shore had such amazingly safe solid colors, real red and green and yellow, when contrasted with the fog-wet deck unearthily glancing with mist-lights.