in a nasal,
high-pitched quaver.]

"My Yosephine, come board de ship. Long time Ay
vait for you.
De moon, she shi-i-i-ine. She looka yust like you.
Tchee-tchee, tchee-tchee, tchee-tchee, tchee-tchee."

[To the accompaniment of this last he waves his hand as if he were
conducting an orchestra.]

JOHNNY--[With a laugh.] Same old Yosie, eh, Chris?

CHRIS--You don't know good song when you hear him. Italian fallar on
oder barge, he learn me dat. Give us drink. [He throws change on the
bar.]

LARRY--[With a professional air.] What's your pleasure, gentlemen?

JOHNNY--Small beer, Larry.

CHRIS--Vhiskey--Number Two.

LARRY--[As he gets their drinks.] I'll take a cigar on you.

CHRIS--[Lifting his glass.] Skoal! [He drinks.]

JOHNNY--Drink hearty.

CHRIS--[Immediately.] Have oder drink.

JOHNNY--No. Some other time. Got to go home now. So you've just landed?
Where are you in from this time?

CHRIS--Norfolk. Ve make slow voyage--dirty vedder--yust fog, fog, fog,
all bloody time! [There is an insistent ring from the doorbell at the
family entrance in the back room. Chris gives a start--hurriedly.] Ay
go open, Larry. Ay forgat. It vas Marthy. She come with me. [He goes
into the back room.]

LARRY--[With a chuckle.] He's still got that same cow livin' with him,
the old fool!

JOHNNY--[With a grin.] A sport, Chris is. Well, I'll beat it home.
S'long. [He goes to the street door.]

LARRY--So long, boss.

JOHNNY--Oh--don't forget to give him his letter.

LARRY--I won't. [JOHNNY goes out. In the meantime, CHRIS has opened the
family entrance door, admitting MARTHY. She might be forty or fifty.
Her jowly, mottled face, with its thick red nose, is streaked with
interlacing purple veins. Her thick, gray hair is piled anyhow in a
greasy mop on top of her round head. Her figure is flabby and fat; her
breath comes in wheezy gasps; she speaks in a loud, mannish voice,
punctuated by explosions of hoarse laughter. But there still twinkles
in her blood-shot blue eyes a youthful lust for life which hard usage
has failed to stifle, a sense of humor mocking, but good-tempered. She
wears a man's cap, double-breasted man's jacket, and a grimy, calico
skirt. Her bare feet are encased in a man's brogans several sizes too
large for her, which gives her a shuffling, wobbly gait.]

MARTHY--[Grumblingly.] What yuh tryin' to do, Dutchy--keep me standin'
out there all day? [She comes forward and sits at the table i