IN THE ARMENIAN QUARTER
Willie was determined that that light should not fail. He meant to
keep it burning brightly. He determined never to forget that the
point was not where he started in the race, but where he ended. The
main thing was to get into the race. And now he was in. He
remembered that somebody had said there were three secrets of
success: first, work; second, more work; third, still more work.
That made Willie happy, because he knew he could work as hard as
anybody, and he believed he could learn to work as effectively as
anybody. At any rate, he meant to try. He was going to think of
nothing but his work—that is, after he got to work. To-day, he was
going to celebrate with Roy. And so, after parting with his big
friend, Sheridan, he made haste to reach the _Lycoming_.
“Talk of angels and they are sure to appear,” laughed Roy, as Willie
came bustling into the _Lycoming’s_ wireless cabin. “We were just
talking about you and hoping we should see you soon. Mr. Robbins was
good enough to come up to chat with me. His big rush is over now.”
“Mighty glad to see you both again,” said Willie, shaking hands with
Roy and the purser. “I’ve got the best news in the world. I’ve got a
job, Roy. And what do you think it is? I’m an office boy.” And
Willie laughed so heartily and good-naturedly that both his friends
laughed with him.
“Congratulations!” returned Roy. “I’m glad you got a job, and better
pleased still that you like it. What changed your mind about being
an office boy?”
“I guess you did. Mr. Sheridan helped, too. You both told me the
same thing: that the point was not so much where I started as it was
to get started. I see that this is true. I’m under way now. Watch me
go.” And Willie laughed happily.
“We’ll do more than watch,” said the purser. “We’ll boost. Let’s
start off with a little feed to celebrate. It’s about dinner-time.
I’m deucedly tired of ship’s grub. Let’s go get a bite of some
landsman’s cooking—something we don’t get every day in the week. Now
let me see. There’s Chinatown. Roy and I have been there. And we’ve
been to Little Italy. And we’ve eaten in the Ghetto. Where can we
find something that is new to both of you?”
The purser paused in thought. Then, “I know,” he said. “We’ll step
into an Armenian restaurant. That will be new to you both, I’m sure.
And it is the handiest place we can find. The Armenians and Syrians
have located close by, in this end of New York, and we can get a
first-class meal. Come on. Let’s go.”
“That will be bully!” cried Willie, with enthusiasm. “I’d like
that.”
“What about you, Roy?” asked the purser.
“I’m willing to try anything once. And after my experiences with
you, I know it will be worth while. You certainly have all the
places spotted where they make good things to eat.”
The purser laughed. “Come on, then. Let’s go.”
The three put on their hats and left the _Lycoming_. They passed
through the long pier shed to West Street and turned down that
thoroughfare. Willie felt very proud to be walking with his two
friends, for they looked really distinguished in their well-fitting,
neatly kept uniforms. The street was jammed with people, and
thousands more were pouring out of the great office-buildings to get
their noonday meal. More than one passer-by turned to look at
Willie’s nautical friends.
“We picked out a pretty poor time to get anything to eat,” said the
purser. “This is the very height of the luncheon hour. If you aren’t
real hungry, I suggest we knock about a bit and let the jam ease up.
Then we’ll feel free to eat as slowly as we like and stay as long as
we like. And we’ll get better service, too. What do you say?”
“Suits me,” said Willie, who was so happy that he didn’t care what
happened.
“I’m agreed,” said Roy.
“Good,” replied the purser. “The only question is how we shall put
in the time.”
“I suspect Willie would like to see some of the sights,” remarked
Roy. “He’s been in New York before, but there are lots of things
neither of us have seen.”
“All right. We’ll just keep going until we strike something he wants
to see.”
They continued on down West Street, along the water-front. The
movement of traffic proved a continual fascination to Willie. He
never tired of watching the endless procession of trucks, drays,
express wagons, motor-cars, and other vehicles, with their
unbelievable loads of merchandise. From time to time they sauntered
out on a pier, their uniforms gaining them admission without
question.
“See that odd little boat over there?” said the purser, as they
walked out on one of the piers.
“Sure,” replied Willie. “I can’t help seeing her. She’s the only
boat in the dock.”
“Do you notice anything unusual about her?” said the purser.
“Sure. It’s the way she’s decked over. She looks like a trim little
steam-yacht boarded up for the winter. It looks as though her owner
had built a sort of second story on her deck. She has hardly any
windows, either. I notice she flies the United States flag.”
“Have you any idea what she is?”
“Not the slightest,” said Willie.
“Well, that’s a mail-boat. She conveys the mails from incoming
steamers. The mail-boat rushes down to Quarantine, comes up
alongside of a liner, and opens her hatches. The steamer shoots the
mail-sacks down into the little boat, which rushes them to land.”
“That’s something else I didn’t know,” remarked Willie. “I’m obliged
to you for pointing her out.”
They left the pier and continued on down West Street. As they
crossed that thoroughfare to the sidewalk, a truck passed them,
loaded with bananas. But the bananas were far different in
appearance from the bunches of rich yellow fruit seen so commonly in
the windows of grocery stores. Each bunch was green—fruit as well as
stem. And there were dozens and dozens of bunches. Willie noticed
the truck, but thought little of it. He had seen green bananas
before, though perhaps never so many at one time. Before they had
gone half a block, another truck passed them, also loaded high with
green bananas. Soon another came past and then another.
“Well,” cried Willie, “would you look at all the bananas? Got enough
there to feed the nation.”
“If you knew how many it takes to feed the nation,” said the purser,
“you would know that those few wagon loads are hardly a drop in the
bucket. Why, the banana ships are going all the time, rushing right
back to Central America as soon as they get rid of their cargo, and
then rushing home again as fast as they can, so that their fruit
won’t get baked on the way.”
“Baked bananas!” exclaimed Willie, his eyes open wide with
astonishment. “You’re stringing me.”
“Not a bit of it,” smiled the purser.
“Tell me what you mean, then.”
“Just what I said. If they don’t hustle home with their fruit as
fast as steam will carry them, the bananas are likely to cook. Then
they are a dead loss, for the Board of Health will not allow the
sale of bananas like that. Why, I stood on one of these banana piers
one night and watched the handlers throw half a million bananas
overboard.”
“A half million bananas!” cried Willie. “How many bananas does one
ship carry, anyway?”
“I can’t tell you exactly, but it runs in my head that a ship
carries somewhere in the neighborhood of 5,000 bunches.”
“How many bananas are there in a bunch?”
“I can’t tell you that exactly, either. But if you will recall how a
bunch of bananas looks, you will remember that the bananas come in
little clusters, like hands. I often buy one of those clusters, and
I know they have a dozen or more good bananas to the hand. A good
bunch of bananas will probably have twelve to eighteen or twenty of
these hands. So I would say that a small bunch contains 150 bananas
and a big bunch 300. If we split the difference, and say 200 bananas
to a bunch and multiply that by 5,000, we’ll be within gunshot of
the number of bananas in a boat load. That makes 1,000,000 bananas.”
“Whew!” whistled Willie. “Think of that. A million bananas in one
boat load. But tell me. How can they get baked?”
“Did you ever sit on a tin roof in the middle of a hot July day?”
demanded the purser.
Willie chuckled. “I have sat down on one,” he said, “but I didn’t
stay long.”
His companions laughed, and Mr. Robbins continued, “A steel steamer
in the tropics heats up just about the way a tin roof does in July.
Of course an effort is made to ventilate the fruit, but if the ship
does not get out of that intense tropic heat in pretty quick time,
you can imagine what happens to the bananas inside. Perhaps they do
not literally bake, but they are so affected by the heat that they
are unfit to eat.”
“That must have been a sight—to watch them throw half a million
bananas overboard,” said Willie. “How do they handle bananas,
anyway? They can’t handle them as they do bales and boxes.”
“Would you like to see them unloading a banana boat?” asked the
purser.
“I sure would.”
“Well, there’s evidently a boat unloading now, or these wagon loads
of fresh fruit would not be passing. The fruit pier is near at hand
and we’ll drop in and watch them unload, while we are waiting to get
our dinner.”
“Thank you,” said Willie. “That will be bully!”
Presently they came to a banana pier. Empty wagons were streaming
into it and trucks laden with green bananas were issuing from it.
The visitors entered the pier and walked along it until they came to
where the unloading was in progress. Then, standing to one side, out
of the way, they watched the process.
The empty wagons formed a line on the far side of the pier. On the
near side of the pier, beside the steamer, several wagons were being
loaded. The banana handlers were apparently mostly foreigners. They
had neither trucks nor baskets, however, but carried the great
bunches of bananas in their arms as carefully as they might convey
so many infants. Down one side of the gangplank walked a line of
empty-handed carriers, while up the other side came the men bearing
the big bunches of fruit. They moved in a steady stream—into the
ship and out, into the ship and out; and one man walked close on
another’s heels. The bananas were passed by the carriers to waiting
hands in the trucks, and the great bunches were piled carefully and
skilfully, sometimes with layers of salt hay between to save them
from being bruised in the trucks.
As fast as a wagon was loaded, the driver drove away, and a wagon
from the waiting line turned and pulled into its place. Thus the
fruit moved in a ceaseless stream from vessel to wagon, and from
pier shed to store or freight-house. For many of these bananas would
be sent inland by train, to supply folks in interior towns.
The steady movement of fruit fascinated Willie. It made him think of
the constant flow of a stream of water. For a long time he watched
in silence. Then the purser caught his eye.
“What do you think of it?” he asked.
“I can’t tell you,” said Willie. “It’s wonderful. It gives me a
feeling I can’t express. But I know one thing. I shall never forget
this scene. And I am a thousand times obliged to you for showing it
to me.”
“I’m glad we happened to think of it,” said the purser. “It’s as
good as a movie.”
“It’s a heap sight better,” commented Willie. “This is real.”
“I thought the movie was reel, too,” said Roy. “If it weren’t for
the possibility of spoiling your fine uniform, Roy,” laughed Willie,
“I’d soak you with one of those green bananas.” And he pointed to
the pieces of unripe fruit on the pier that had dropped from the
bunches while they were being handled.
“Do you know,” said the purser, after consulting his watch, “that it
has been more than an hour since we left the _Lycoming_? It’s
half-past one. I think we can safely get under way.”
They left the fruit pier, and striking directly away from the
water-front, at once found themselves in a maze of small streets.
Curious, indeed, was the transformation. All about them stood
sky-scrapers, towering aloft hundreds of feet. Yet the little
thoroughfares they were now penetrating were lined with low, old,
brick buildings, mostly dwellings or dwelling-houses that had been
converted into shops. They were small, low, dingy, ill-kept
buildings of three or four stories with sloping roofs and
dormer-windows. Their lines were good. Some of the doorways were
still beautiful, despite the rough treatment they had had. It
required little imagination to picture the time when these were the
homes of well-to-do people.
They passed what had been a saloon, and probably still was, which
bore on its window the name of Casey.
“Just look at that name,” said the purser. “That’s a relic of
antiquity.”
“What do you mean?” asked Willie.
“Why, that is a reminder of a lost people,” laughed the purser.
“A lost people!” cried Roy. “With Tammany Hall full of Murphys, and
Caseys, and Hennesseys, and O’Haras! What are you giving us?”
“It’s a fact, though,” said the purser. “Of course, there are plenty
of Irishmen in New York, but not around here. Yet some years ago,
this was a solid Irish settlement. And before the Irish, it was a
region of fine American homes. Now nobody lives here except
Armenians, Syrians, and a few Turks. We have migrations from
location to location in a city, as well as from country to country.”
“So these folks are Syrians and Armenians, are they?” said Willie,
quietly. “I’m mighty glad to have a chance to see them.”
All about them were Armenian shops. Swarthy, black-haired women sat
in dark doorways, singly and in groups, chatting and industriously
doing needlework as they talked. Mostly their features were regular
and pleasing. Their olive complexions were strikingly beautiful.
Their teeth, exposed when they laughed, seemed to be as fine as
pearls. Generally they wore shawls about their shoulders, or thrown
over their heads. These were of fine, thin material, gay and even
gaudy, but very beautiful for all that. They formed splendid
settings for the dark faces they framed. There were men of the same
races about, too. Not large, also swarthy, with piercing, black
eyes, the men attracted far less attention than the women. Their
dress appeared quite similar to that of most Europeans or Americans,
though a close observer would have noticed many small differences,
in shoes, neckwear, ornaments, and so on.
All these foreigners talked for the most part in their native
tongues. They seemed to chatter interminably. The men from the
_Lycoming_ could understand nothing of what was said. But they
gathered, from the tones and the glances that were bestowed upon
them, that they themselves were the subject of some of the talk.
Indeed, on several occasions Willie noticed that as they came along
women jumped from the shop steps on which they were sitting and
darted into the stores behind them or called excitedly to persons
within. Then the women sat down on the steps again and went on with
their lace making or knitting. But always the women seemed to be
watching them. At first Willie thought nothing of this. But after
two or three of the women had gone through same performance, Willie
saw that it was more than a coincidence. Something about their
appearance attracted undue attention to them.
Presently Willie fell behind his comrades, in passing a group of
pedestrians, and he purposely remained behind, even dropping back
several yards, as though he had no connection with Roy and the
purser. They were deep in an argument and for some time did not
notice that Willie was not abreast of them.
Willie took advantage of this opportunity to observe what was
passing. He saw that he himself attracted no attention whatever, but
that at shop after shop, on the approach of Roy and the purser,
there was a flutter of skirts and a woman scurried into the shop.
But Willie could see nothing in the shops that explained it. After a
while he came to the conclusion that it must be his friends’
uniforms that caused the commotion. He was a bit puzzled about that,
but when he recalled that he had heard how badly some of these
foreigners had fared at the hands of American immigration officials,
he thought he understood it. The women, he thought, must have some
fear of ship’s officers.
Willie was just stepping forward to speak to his friends about it,
when he heard the purser say, “Here we are. Where’s Willie?”
“Right here,” called Willie.
“This is the place where we eat,” said the purser, and the three
entered a dingy old house that had become an Armenian restaurant.
Willie entirely forgot about the incident he had observed, for the
restaurant was unlike any place in which he had ever been.
It was on the second floor of one of the old houses with which the
street was filled. The brick wall on the street side had largely
been removed, and great glass windows put in, making the place light
and pleasant. The room was not large. It was furnished with small,
round tables. On the walls were various printed cards and placques,
but Willie could read none of them. He judged that they were printed
in Turkish characters. There were a few tapestries hung about, but
otherwise little attempt had been made at ornamentation.
Willie’s attention was instantly riveted by the men in the place.
Slight of build, dressed in dark clothes, and displaying
considerable jewelry, with swarthy skins, black hair, and piercing
eyes, they sat indolently in groups, conversing in their native
tongue. All of them were smoking, mostly cigarettes; but two of the
groups were gathered about Turkish hookahs, from which all of those
in the groups were smoking.
Willie had never before seen hookahs, but he had read about them,
and he knew instantly that the strange things he was looking at were
hubble-bubbles or water-pipes, so extensively used in the Orient.
The thing made him think of a large water carafe with a gaudy,
handleless teacup set atop of it. The teacup was a highly ornate
tobacco-bowl. From it a tube descended into the carafe-like water
container, which was of glass, also ornamented. Leading from this
water bowl were several pliant tubes of some length, that terminated
in mouthpieces like pipes. Each of the smokers held one of these
tubes in his hand. From time to time each smoker raised his
mouthpiece to his lips and drew smoke through the tube. At each
inhalation the smoke was sucked down from the glowing tobacco-bowl
through the water, which bubbled and bubbled.
At the entrance of the three Americans a sudden hush fell on the
place. Every eye in the room was directed toward them. But when the
purser and his companions returned the gaze, eyes were turned away
again. Yet Willie saw well enough, that though no one was staring at
them, not a move of theirs escaped observation. The observation was
sly, furtive. It made Willie think of a cat watching for a mouse,
apparently half asleep, with eyes all but closed, yet intensely
alert and ready to spring at the appearance of so much as a whisker.
In the same way Willie felt that the purser, Roy, and he were being
watched. The various groups in the place resumed their talk. The men
lounged in their chairs in an indolent, indescribably lazy way, not
unlike a cat stretched out by a kitchen fire. And indolently they
puffed at their cigarettes and hookah tubes.
Soon the feeling of uneasiness wore off. The purser seemed to feel
perfectly at home, and Roy likewise paid small attention to those
about him. He was continuing his discussion with the purser.
The latter picked up a bill of fare and shoved it across the table
to his companions. “What shall it be?” he inquired.
“You might as well ask me what the people of Mars look like,”
laughed Roy, examining the card. “I could answer just as
intelligently. These names don’t mean a thing to me.”
“How would it be if I order?” inquired the purser. “We can have
several large orders, from which we can all be helped. We’ll find
some things that way that we shall all like, I’m sure.”
“That suits us,” said Roy and Willie together.
The purser consulted his card and then talked to the waiter, who
presently returned with a huge tray full of curious foods. He
brought rice with cooked tomatoes and meat and spice in it, called
pilau; and meat rolled into a hollow cylinder and filled with
unnamable but delectable vegetables and savory spices and raisins;
and cucumbers, hollowed out and stuffed, then baked; and curious
forms of bread; and pastries; and dishes composed of baked fruits
with raisins; and other strange delicacies, so that the little table
was filled to overflowing. But the party did not object to that.
Each was hungry by this time and they attacked the food vigorously.
After a single mouthful they needed no urging. “Yum! Yum!” said Roy,
sampling the stuffed meat roll. “This sure is great!” Then he fell
to with a will. The purser smiled with pleasure. For a few moments
there was little conversation among the three. They were too busy to
talk. When they had ended, the platters were bare. Turkish coffee
was served in tiny cups. When they were entirely through with their
meal, the purser paid the bill, and the three went out.
Every eye followed them. Willie was the last one out of the door. He
paused a moment in the hallway. And in that moment he heard a
perfect babel of voices within the restaurant. Apparently every man
in the place was talking at full speed.
“They’re discussing us,” thought Willie. Then he followed his
companions down-stairs.
It took the party but a few minutes to get back to the Lycoming. As
they climbed up to the wireless cabin, they met a young man coming
down. He wore the uniform of a wireless operator.
“Hello, Reynolds,” cried Roy, springing forward and holding out his
hand to the visitor. “I’m mighty glad to see you. Can’t you come
back and stay a while?”
“Sure,” said the visitor. “That’s what I came for. I had a little
time off and thought I’d come over for a chat.”
The purser stepped forward and shook hands warmly with the visitor.
Then Roy presented Willie.
“Mr. Reynolds,” he said, “I am glad to make you acquainted with my
old friend, Willie Brown. Willie belongs to the Wireless Patrol you
have heard me tell about. He’s a fine wireless man, so we have much
in common.”
Then turning to Willie, Roy continued, “Willie, Mr. Reynolds is the
wireless man on the Ward liner _Morro Castle_. We got acquainted
down in Galveston, and we’ve become pretty good friends. You see our
boats run up and down the coast. Usually we are within talking
distance of each other, and when our work is out of the way, we
often chat at long range. We keep each other posted as to what is
happening along the route.”
Willie and Mr. Reynolds shook hands warmly. “I’m mighty glad to know
you, Mr. Reynolds,” said Willie. “I’m glad to know any of Roy’s
friends, for he and Mr. Robbins are almost the only people I know in
New York. And I’m especially glad you are a wireless man. I’ve got
my own wireless set here, but, besides Roy, I have no one near that
I can talk to. Maybe I can talk to you when you’re near port.”
“I’d be delighted,” said Reynolds. “And when I’m not near port, too,
if we can reach each other. How far can your set carry?”
“I don’t know,” said Willie. “I made my outfit myself. I run it now
with dry cells, so it won’t carry very far. But when I’m able to,
I’m going to get a battery powerful enough to carry as far as
Central City, Pennsylvania. I want to be able to talk to the fellows
back home.”
“Then we can talk at considerable distances,” said Mr. Reynolds.
“Where is your set installed?”
“It’s in that old suit case under Roy’s bunk,” laughed Willie. “I
don’t know where I’ll set it up. I just landed in New York and have
no boarding-house yet. I’m going to work in the Custom-house. If it
is possible, I should like to live near by. That will save time and
be interesting, too. There are so many fascinating things to see
down here. Then, too, I’d be near Roy’s pier, so he and I can see
each other easily when he gets into port.”
“That sounds like sense. I have no doubt you will find just what you
are looking for. Suppose we exchange call signals. Then we can talk
as soon as you get your outfit rigged up. The _Morro Castle’s_ call
is KWC.”
“And my call,” said Willie, “will be the same that I had back home.
I am regularly licensed, but I suppose I may have to have my license
transferred. At any rate, my old call is CBM. Our club call is CBWC.
It’s a bit irregular, perhaps, but it is the call we chose when we
formed the wireless club. The initials stand for Camp Brady Wireless
Club.”
“I see,” said Mr. Reynolds. “And how do you come to have the call
CBM?”
“It’s this way. The CB stands for Camp Brady and the M is my
letter.”
“I should think your letter would be B for Brown.”
“You would naturally think so, but we couldn’t choose our calls that
way. We had more than one fellow with the same initial. So we just
picked our letters in our regular firing order. You know we had a
pistol squad, and we used to shoot in turn. The letter M fell to
me.”
“I see,” said Mr. Reynolds. “As Shakespeare says, ‘What’s in a
name,’ anyway? So I know your call, that is sufficient.”
“Well, any time you hear the call CBWC, you’ll know that somebody is
trying to get the fellows at home. And it would almost certainly be
either Roy or myself. And if you hear the call CBM, you’ll know that
somebody wants me. That would most likely be Roy. At any rate, I
hope you will be sounding the call CBM before very long. I’ll let
you know when I get my outfit set up.”
In a few minutes the purser went back to his office. Mr. Reynolds
chatted a while and returned to his steamer. Roy and Willie were
alone.
“Roy,” said Willie, his face suddenly sober, “I don’t feel exactly
right about this business. I was so happy over getting my job that I
didn’t think about you at first. I came here as your guest. Now I’ve
accepted a job and engaged to go to work to-morrow. That means I
can’t make the trip to Galveston with you. I didn’t think before how
that looks. I’ve half a notion to go back and throw up the job. I’m
not treating you fair, Roy.”
“You blooming old chump,” cried Roy. “You’ll do nothing of the sort.
Of course, I am sorry that you are not going to make the trip with
me. But that is only a pleasure deferred. You can go the first time
you have a vacation. And besides, having you permanently in New York
means a hundred times as much to me as having you on shipboard with
me for a few days. Why, now you’ll always be here when I get back
from the South. We can have several nights together after each trip.
And we can talk to each other for some hours after I leave port or
before I reach it on the return. I’ll say it’s bully. So don’t you
worry one bit longer about me. We’ll have to-day together, anyway.
Then I want you to jump in and make a reputation for yourself. And I
know you’re going to do it. You’ve got it in you, and I expect soon
to hear that you are having wonderful adventures.”
“Yes, sharpening lead-pencils and filling the boss’s ink-well,”
laughed Willie.
Alas for Willie! Life was not to be so placid for him as he fancied.