ment near the end of a dock peninsula which jutted
out into the bay. For I wanted to live in the very heart of the big
port's confusion, to grapple alone with the chaos out of which Dillon's
engineers were striving to bring order. Here I lived for weeks by
myself, taking my meals in a barroom below.

There were no stately liners here. The North River piers with their rich
life had been like a show room. I had come down into the factory now. I
could see them still, those liners, but only in the distance steaming
through the Narrows. Eleanore had gone that way. Here close around me
were grimy yards with heaps of coal, enormous sheds, and inland one of
the two narrow mouths of the crowded Erie Basin, out of which slid ugly
freighters through the dirty water.

Like the Ancient Mariner I sat there dully on the pier watching the life
of the ocean go past, and I would try to jot it down. But soon I would
stop. "All right--who cares?" The punch was gone. It grew hot and the
water smelt. And I was as blue a reporter of life as ever chewed his
pencil.

But life has a way of punching up even a stale young writer. In the
rooms above mine lived a man and wife who quarreled half way through the
night. Night after night they railed at each other, until one horrible
night of screams, in the middle of which I heard the man come running
downstairs. He banged at my door.

"Come in," I cried morosely. A big figure entered the dark room.

"Look here," said a rough frightened voice. "Get up and get dressed and
run for a doctor. Will you, son? I'm in a hell of a hole!"

"What's the matter!"

"My woman is havin' a baby, that's what," he answered fiercely. "We
wasn't expectin' it so soon! An' there ain't a single doctor in miles!
But there's a night watchman with a 'phone down there in the dockshed!"

"All right, old man, I'll do my best."

"Say!" he shouted after me, as I hurried down the stairs. "If you know a
damn thing about this business come back here the minute you've
'phoned! I'm in a hole, brother, a hell of a hole!"

I came back soon, and within a few minutes after I came I saw a baby
born.

I did not sleep that night. My mind was curiously clear. I had had the
jolt that I needed from life--its agony and bloody sweat, its mystery.
It was not dull, it was not stale. The only trouble lay in me. I must
find a new angle from which to write.

Why not try becoming one of the workers? The man upstairs was a tug
captain, and gr