"Now getting back to this mermaid," he began in a confidential voice,
"what I say as I didn't claim to have saw. It happened this way and
what I'm telling you, sonny, is the plain, unvarnished facts of the
case, take 'em or leave 'em as you will. They happened and I'm here to
tell the whole world so."
"I have every confidence in you, chief," I replied mildly.
"It is well you have," he growled, scanning my face suspiciously.
"It's well you have, you louse."
"Why, chief," I exclaimed in an aggrieved voice, "isn't that rather an
unappetizing word to apply to a fellow creature?"
"Mayhap, young feller," he replied, "mayhap. I ain't no deep sea
dictionary diver, I ain't, but all this has got nothing to do with
what I was about to tell you. It all happened after this manner,
neither no more nor no less."
He cleared his throat and gazed with undisguised hostility across the
parade ground. Thus he began:
"It was during the summer of 1888, some thirty odd years ago," quoth
he. "I was a bit young then, but never such a whey face as you,
certainly not."
"Positively," said I, in hearty agreement.
"At that time," he continued, not noticing my remark, "I was resting
easy on a soft job between cruises as night watchman on one of them
P.O. docks at Dover. The work warn't hard, but it was hard enough. I
would never have taken it had it not been for the unpleasant fact that
owing to some little trouble I had gotten into at one of the pubs my
wife was in one of her nasty, brow-beating moods. At these times the
solitude and the stars together with the grateful companionship of a
couple of buckets of beer was greatly to be preferred to my little old
home. So I took the job and accordingly spent my nights sitting with
my back to a pile, my legs comfortably stretched out along the rim of
the dock and a bucket of beer within easy reach."
"Could anything be fairer than that?" said I.
"Nothing," said he, and continued. "Well, one night as I was sitting
there looking down in the water as a man does when his mind is empty
and his body well disposed, I found myself gazing down into two
glowing pools that weren't the reflections of stars. Above these two
flecks of light was perched a battered old leghorn hat after the style
affected in the music halls of those days. Floating out back of this
hat on the water was a long wavery coil of filmy hair, the face was
shaded, but two long slim arms were thrust out of the water toward me,
and following these arms down a bit I was shocked and surprised to
find that further than the hat the young lady below me was apparently
innocent of garments. Now I believe in going out with the boys when
the occasion demands and making a bit of a time of it, but my folks
have always been good, honest church people and believers in good,
strong, modest clothing and plenty of 'em. I have always followed
their example."
"Reluctantly and at a great distance," said I.
"Not at all," said he and continued. "So when I sees the condition the
young lady was in I was naturally very much put out and I didn't
hesitate telling her so.
"'Go home,' says I, 'and put your clothes on. You ought to be ashamed
of yourself--a great big girl like you.'
"'Aw, pipe down, old grizzle face,' says she; 'wot have you got in the
bucket?' And if you will believe me she began raising herself out of
the water. 'Give me some,' says she.
"'Stop,' I cries out exasperated; 'stop where you are; you've gone far
enough. For shame.'
"'I'll come all the way out,' says she, laughing, 'unless you give me
some of wot you got in that bucket.'
"'Shame,' I repeated, 'ain't you got no sense of decency?'
"'None wot so ever,' she replied, 'but I'm awfully thirsty. Gimme a
drink or out I'll come.'
"Now you can see for yourself that I couldn't afford to have a woman
in her get-up sitting around with me on the end of a dock, being
married as I was and my folks all good honest church folks, and bright
moon shining in the sky to boot, so I was just naturally forced to
give in to the brazen thing and reach her down the bucket, a full one
at that. It came back empty and she was forwarder than ever.
"'Say,' she cries out, swimming around most exasperatingly, 'you're a
nice old party. What do your folks know you by?'
"I told her my name was none of her business and that I was a married
man and that I wished she'd go away and let me go on with my night
watching.
"'I'm married too,' says she, in a conversational tone, 'to an awful
mess. You're pretty fuzzy, but I'd swap him for you any day. Come on
into the sea with me and we'll swim down to Gold Fish Arms and stick
around until we get a drink. I know lots of the boys down there. There
ain't no liquor dealers where I come from,' and with this if you will
believe me she flips a bucket full of water into my lap with the
neatest little scale spangled tail you ever seen.
"'No,' says I, 'my mind's made up. I ain't agoing to go swimming
around with no semi-stewed, altogether nude mermaid. It ain't right.
It ain't Christian.'
"'I got a hat,' says she reflectively, 'and I ain't so stewed but wot
I can't swim. Wot do you think of that hat? One of the boys stole it
from his old woman and gave it to me. Come on, let's take a swim.'
"'No,' says I, 'I ain't agoing.'
"'Just 'cause I ain't all dolled up in a lot of clothes?' says she.
"'Partly,' says I, 'and partly because you are a mermaid. I ain't
agoing messing around through the water with no mermaid. I ain't never
done it and I ain't agoing to begin it now.'
"'If I get some clothes on and dress all up pretty, will you go
swimming with me then?' she asks pleadingly.
"'Well that's another thing,' says I, noncommittal like.
"'All right,' says she, 'gimme something out of that other bucket and
I'll go away. Come on, old sweetheart,' and she held up her arms to
me.
"Well, I gave her the bucket and true to form she emptied it. Then she
began to argue and plead with me until I nearly lost an ear.
"'No,' I yells at her, 'I ain't agoing to spend the night arguing with
a drunken mermaid. Go away, now; you said you would.'
"'All right, old love,' she replies good-naturedly, 'but I'll see you
again some time. I ain't ever going home again. I hate it down there.'
And off she swims in an unsteady manner in the direction of the Gold
Fish Arms. She was singing and shouting something terrible.
"'Oh, bury me not on the lonesome prairie
Where the wild coyotes howl o'er me,'
was the song she sang and I wondered where she had ever picked it up.
"Well," continued the chief, "to cast a sheep shank in a long line,
these visits kept up every evening until I was pretty near drove
distracted. Along she'd come about sun-down and stick around devilin'
me and drinking up all my grog. After a while she began calling for
gin and kept threatening me until I just had to satisfy her. She also
made me buy her a brush and comb, a mouth organ and a pair of
spectacles, together with a lot of other stuff on the strength of the
fact that if I refused she would make a scene. In this way that doggon
mermaid continually kept me broke, for my wage warn't enough to make
me heavy and I had my home to support.
"'Don't you ever go home?' I asked her one night.
"'No,' she replied, 'I ain't ever going back home. I don't like it
down there. There ain't no liquor dealers.'
"'But your husband,' exclaims I. 'What of him?'
"'I know,' says she, 'but I don't like him and I'm off my baby, too.
It squints,' says she.
"'But all babies squint,' says I.
"'Mine shouldn't,' says she. 'It ain't right.'
"Then one night an awful thing happened. My wife came down to the dock
to find out how I spent all my money. It was a bright moon-lit night
and this lost soul of a mermaid was hanging around, particularly
jilled and entreating. I was just in the act of passing her down the
gin flask and she was saying to me, 'Come on down, old love; you know
you're crazy about me,' when all of a sudden I heard an infuriated
shriek behind me and saw my wife leaning over the dock shaking an
umbrella at this huzzy of a mermaid. Oh, son," broke off the Chief,
"if you only knew the uncontrolled violence and fury of two contending
women. Nothing you meet on shipboard will ever equal it. I was
speechless, rocked in the surf of a tumult of words. And in the midst
of it all what should happen but the husband of the mermaid pops out
of the water with a funny little bit of a merbaby in his arms.
"'Go home at once, sir,' screams my wife, 'and put on your clothes.'
"'I will,' he shouts back, 'if my wife will come along with me.'
"He was a weazened up little old man with a crooked back. Not very
prepossessing. I could hardly blame his wife.
"'So that bit of stuff is your wife, is it?' cries out my old lady,
and with that she began telling him her past.
"'I know it,' says the little old merman at last, almost crying; 'I
know it, but I ain't got no control over her whatsoever. I've been
trying to get her to come home for the last fortnight, but she just
won't leave off going around with the sailors. The whole beach is
ashamed of her. It's general talk down below. What can I do? The
little old coral house is going to wrack and ruin and the baby ain't
been properly took care of since she left. What am I going to do,
madam? What am I going to do? I'm well nigh distracted.'
"But his wife was too taken up with the gin bottle to pay much heed to
his pitiful words. She just kept flirting around in the water and
singing snatches of bad sailor songs she'd picked up around the docks.
"'Take her home,' said my wife, 'take her home, you weakling, by
force.'
"'But I can't when she's in this condition. I got a child in my arms.'
"'Give me the baby,' said my wife, with sudden determination. 'I'll
take care of it until to-morrow night when you can come back here and
get it.'
"He handed the flopping little thing up to my wife and turned to the
mermaid.
"'Lil,' he says to her, holding out his arms to her, 'Lil, will you
come home?'
"Lil swims up to him then and takes him by the arm and looks at him
for a long time.
"'Kiss me, Archie,' she says suddenly, 'I don't mind if I do,' and
flipping a couple of pounds of water upon the both of us on the pier,
she pulls him under the water laughing and that's the last I saw of
either of them. Now I ain't asaying as I have ever seen a mermaid mind
you," continued the chief, "but what I do say is that if any man has
ever seen one I'm the man."
"I understand perfectly," said I, "and what, chief, became of the
baby?"
"Oh, the baby," said the chief, thoughtful like; "the baby--well, you
see, about that baby--" he gazed searchingly around the landscape for
a moment before replying.
"Oh, the baby," he said suddenly, as if greatly relieved, "well, my
wife took the baby home and kept it in the bathtub for a couple of
days after which she returned it in person to its father. She made me
give up my job. It did squint, though," said the chief, as he got up
to go, "ever so little."