MacAllister

“I shall not try to change your mind,” Captain Powell said. “But just know that if you ever have a desire to go to sea again, look me up. I will be happy to sponsor you.”

“I appreciate that, Captain, more than I can say.”

When Duff returned to steerage to pick up his bag, the other sailors stood, respectfully.

“Here now, what is all this?” Duff asked.

“Is it true that you are to be a ship’s officer?” Kelly asked.

“No,” Duff said. “Now why would I leave the fo’ castle?”

Kelly smiled broadly. “Fine lad that you are, I knew you were one of us.”

“Well, not entirely,” Duff replied. “If I were to ship out again, it would be with you men, for I’ve served with no finer group of men anywhere. But, it’s ashore for me. I want to see some of America.”

“Then perhaps you’ll have dinner with us tonight at the Port of Call,” Kelly asked.

“I would be honored,” Duff said.

The Port of Call restaurant was less than a block away from the docks. The sign in front was a wooden representation of a three- masted schooner. The bill of fare exhibited its international flavor by offering cuisine from a dozen countries, from Moo Goo Gai Pan to Avocat et Oeufs a la Mousse de Crabe, from kidney pie to Southern fried chicken.

There was a kaleidoscope of sound inside as sailors from a dozen countries carried on spirited conversations in their own languages. Everything was going well until a big Frenchman was walking by the table of the sailors from the Hiawatha. Just as he drew even with the table, Dowling, one of the Hiawatha crew, chose that moment to stand up so that he could go relieve himself. He pushed his chair back into the path of the Frenchman, and the French sailor stumbled but did not fall.

“Oh, beg your pardon, mate, I didn’t see you coming,” Dowling said.

“Cochon Americain typique, aussi aveugle que vous etes stupide,” the Frenchman mumbled.

“Vous etes des ceux qui sont aveugles et stupides. Mon ami s’est excuse, mais vous etes trop le rustre pour etre gracieux,” Duff said.

The Frenchman had called Dowling a blind, stupid pig, and Duff had responded by saying that Frenchman was the one who was blind and stupid, and too much the boor to accept an apology. The Frenchman’s eyes grew large when he heard Duff speak.

“Yes, I speak French,” Duff said.

The Frenchman started to walk away and Duff turned his attention back to his friends at the table. A moment later Kelly yelled, “MacCallister, look out!”

Duff turned just in time to see that the Frenchman had picked up a chair and had the chair raised high, preparatory to bringing it down on Duff’s head. Duff rolled off his seat just as the Frenchman brought the chair crashing down on the table, breaking the plate Duff was eating from and sending food flying.

Shouting in anger for having missed, the Frenchman raised his chair again and turned toward Duff. From the floor, Duff sent a whistling kick into the Frenchman’s groin. The Frenchman dropped the chair and grabbed himself, doubled over with pain.

While he was still doubled over, Duff leaped up from the floor, grabbed the Frenchman by the scruff of his neck and the back of his shirt, then started across the floor with him, moving him toward the door. One of the waiters saw what had happened and what was now happening, and he opened the front door, just as Duff pushed the big Frenchman through it. The Frenchman fell forward, his face landing in a pile of horse apples.

When Duff went back into the restaurant, everyone inside stood and applauded, even including the other Frenchmen.

“Claude is—as Americans would say, a sorry son of a bitch,” one of the French sailors said. “It is about time someone gave him his due.”

When Duff returned to the table, he saw that his broken plate had been replaced with a new, fresh serving of haggis, taties, and neeps.

“I don’t know how you can eat that,” Kelly said. “But the waiter brought you another serving, on the house.”

Duff awakened the next morning to the sounds of the city. Just outside the window of his hotel he heard a train going by on an elevated track. From the street, five stories below, he could hear the clip-clop of horses’ hooves and the ringing sound of iron-rimmed wheels rolling on the paved road. Getting out of bed, Duff moved to the window to have his first real look at New York. With five- and six-story buildings on either side of the street, he felt as if he were looking down a canyon.

The street was filled with pedestrians and vehicles, hundreds of people strolling to and fro, and dozens of large freight wagons, omnibuses, elegant carriages, buckboards, and surreys. In addition to surface traffic, there was also an elevated railroad and a spiderweb maze of telephone, telegraph, and electric lines. His room had electric lights, and the notice on the dresser proudly proclaimed that telephone service was available in the lobby.

Duff had heard of a telephone, but he had never seen one, and wasn’t exactly sure how one would work. But after getting dressed, he walked down to the lobby to see how one went about using the phone.

“What number do you wish to call?” the desk clerk asked.

“Well, I don’t know,” Duff replied. “I don’t know what you mean by number. I wish to call a person.”

“Sir,” the clerk explained patiently, “if that person has a telephone, the telephone will have a number. You must know that number in order to put your call through.”

“Oh,” Duff said. “I’m afraid I don’t know the number.”

The clerk took some pity on him then, realizing from his accent that he wasn’t local.

“If you know the person’s name, we can look up the number,” the clerk said.

“Look up the number? How does one do that?”