a
Martinique or a Haytian. West Indian "English" alternated with a black
patois that smelt at times faintly of French, muscular, bullet-headed
negroes appeared slowly and laboriously counting their money in their
hats, eagle-nosed Spaniards under the boina of the Pyrenees, Spaniards
from Castile speaking like a gatling-gun in action, now and again even
a snappy-eyed Andalusian with his s-less slurred speech, slow,
laborious Gallegos, Italians and Portuguese in numbers, Colombians of
nondescript color, a Slovak who spoke some German, a man from Palestine
with a mixture of French and Arabic noises I could guess at, and
scattered here and there among the others a Turk who jabbered the
lingua franca of Mediterranean ports. I "got" all who fell into my
hands. Once I dragged forth a Hindu, and shuddered with fear of a first
failure. But he knew a bit of a strange English and I found I recalled
six or seven words of my forgotten Hindustanee.

Then suddenly a flood of Greeks broke upon us, growing deeper with
every moment. Above the pandemonium my companions were howling hoarsely
and imploringly for the interpreter, while clutching their trembling
victim by the slack of his labor-stained shirt lest he escape
un-enrolled. The interpreter, in accordance with a well-known law of
physics and the limitations of human nature, could not be in sixteen
places at once. I crowded close, caught his words, memorized the few
questions, and there was I with my "Poomaynes?" "Poseeton?" and
"Padremaynos?" enrolling Greeks unassisted, not only that but haughtily
acting as interpreter for my fellows--not only without having studied
the tongue of Achilles but never even having graced a Greek letter
fraternity.

Quick tropical twilight descended, and still the labor-smeared line
wound away out of sight into the darkness, still workmen of every shade
and tongue jingled their brass-checks timidly on the edge of the
pay-window, from behind which came roaring noises that the Americans
within fancied Spaniards, or Greeks, or Roumanians must understand
because they were not English noises; still we pounced upon the paid as
upon a tackling-dummy in the early days of spring practice.

The colossal wonder of it all was how these deep-chested,
muscle-knotted fellows endured us, how they refrained from taking us up
between a thumb and forefinger and dropping us over the veranda
railing. For our attack lacked somewhat in gentle courtesy, notably so
that of