The
Transport Company thought much of him, only they said he was
reckless, and he surely acted youthful to belie his looks. He used to
go around in a grimy little tugboat called the _Harvest Moon_,
with Irish running the engine below, and himself busy thrashing and
blackguarding roustabouts, joyful like a dewy morn; but at night he'd
be found on the deck of either the _Helen Mar_ or the _Harvest
Moon_, playing a banjo very melancholy, and singing his verses to
tunes that he got from secret sources of sorrow maybe, which the
verses were interesting, but the tunes weren't fortunate. He was
particular about his poetry being accurate to facts, but he'd no gift
as to tunes.
The trouble he got into all came from throwing Pedro Hillary off the
stern of the _Harvest Moon_, so that Pete went out with the
tide, because no one thought him worth fishing out, till it was found
that he was a member of some sort of Masonic Society among the
negroes in Ferdinand Street, and a British subject too, who came from
Jamaica to Portate. But before that time Pete was picked up by a
rowboat, and came back to Portate and Ferdinand Street. He and
Ferdinand Street were very mad.
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