His keen, Asiatic face, quick with
intelligence, was a relief to the eye, as was the vivid face of
Shorty, who came out of the forecastle with a leap and a gurgle of
laughter. But there was something wrong with him, too. He was a
dwarf, and, as I was to come to know, his high spirits and low
mentality united to make him a clown.
Mr. Pike stopped beside me a moment and while he watched the men I
watched him. The expression on his face was that of a cattle-buyer,
and it was plain that he was disgusted with the quality of cattle
delivered.
"Something the matter with the last mother's son of them," he
growled.
And still they came: one, pallid, furtive-eyed, that I instantly
adjudged a drug fiend; another, a tiny, wizened old man, pinch-faced
and wrinkled, with beady, malevolent blue eyes; a third, a small,
well-fleshed man, who seemed to my eye the most normal and least
unintelligent specimen that had yet appeared. But Mr. Pike's eye was
better trained than mine.
"What's the matter with YOU?" he snarled at the man.
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