Larry could stand no more than an hour in irons, at which time his
stupid brutishness overcame any fear he might have possessed, because
he bellowed out to the poop to come down and loose him for a fair
fight. Promptly Mr. Pike was there with the key to the handcuffs.
As if Larry had the shred of a chance against that redoubtable aged
man! Wada reported that Larry, amongst other things, had lost a
couple of front teeth and was laid up in his bunk for the day. When
I met Mr. Pike on deck after eight o'clock I glanced at his knuckles.
They verified Wada's tale.
I cannot help being amused by the keen interest I take in little
events like the foregoing. Not only has time ceased, but the world
has ceased. Strange it is, when I come to think of it, in all these
weeks I have received no letter, no telephone call, no telegram, no
visitor. I have not been to the play. I have not read a newspaper.
So far as I am concerned, there are no plays nor newspapers. All
such things have vanished with the vanished world. All that exists
is the Elsinore, with her queer human freightage and her cargo of
coal, cleaving a rotund of ocean of which the skyline is a dozen
miles away.
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