One morning he went down through the docks to the breakwater, desiring to get certain aspects of it fixed in his memory before leaving. Returning at noon, he came upon the apparition of Lonesome Blue in Joliette Square.
Ray had not seen Lonesome Blue since the day at the Senegalese café when the boys were telling jokes. That afternoon he had gone with Lonesome to police headquarters and seen the assistant chief about his case. That official had told Ray that the police had nothing to do about an order of expulsion but to arrest and prosecute the delinquent again if he did not put himself beyond the frontiers of France. Ray tried to get a written statement to that effect to take to the American consulate, but the official said that that was a generally understood thing.
From police headquarters he went to the American consulate with Lonesome. The French official was right. They knew all about the regulations controlling deportees. Ray saw the chief clerk who was in charge of shipping and seaman’s affairs. The chief clerk was a Britisher of that typical breed, overbearing to common persons and crawling to superiors, that a mere British subject has to buck up against all over the world.
This gentleman recognized Lonesome immediately and vented a low-down growl, such as a vicious hound might make at a mangy mongrel daring to approach his presence.
“Hm. Yer back heah again, eh?” he said to Lonesome. “What do yer want? I swear I’ll do nothing more for yer and I don’t want you to come back to this office.” He brought his fist down on the desk.
Ray told him that he had brought Lonesome there because the man was ill, helpless, and daft. He had been to police headquarters and asked why the boy was continually arrested and punished in prison for violation of the expulsion law when he seemed incapable of acting for himself, and they had told him that his case was the affair of the American consular authorities and not theirs. The chief clerk told Ray that Lonesome Blue had refused without reason to go on the first ship he put him on months ago, and he would do nothing further for him. He had too many pressing cases and other business to give any further attention to Lonesome, who had left the United States on a foreign vessel and did not really merit the same treatment as an American seaman on an American vessel.
The clerk was long and lean, with the appearance of a woman who had suffered and grown gaunt and spidery from never having a man. His lips were tightly compressed, too repellently thin and slight to utter a hearty laugh. He was just the little-official type that is punch-pleased when some poor devil fails to comply with instructions given, gets into trouble, and affords the opportunity to say, “I did my duty.” The wretchedest thing about him was his voice, which was a sort of unnatural amalgam between a cockney whine and the English gentlemanly accent, and it grated up and down Ray’s nerves like a saw against a nail.
“But why did you come here?” he asked Ray. “Why are yer interested in this?”
It was on Ray’s tongue to say that he was there only in the interest of common decency, but he checked that, remembering that his purpose was not to be cleverly sarcastic, but to try to get Lonesome Blue back to the United States, where he might have a chance to pull himself together among his own people. And so Ray was humble and begged the clerk to give Lonesome another chance, because he was sorry for his first mistake. The clerk remained obdurate, and Ray went with Lonesome to see one of the consuls.
He was ushered into the presence of the chief and he explained Lonesome’s case. Quite different from his underling, the consul was attentive and courteous. He reiterated that Lonesome Blue’s initial blunder was a serious one, that seamen’s affairs were dealt with entirely by the chief clerk, but he would speak to him and see that the fellow was given another chance.
Ray thanked the consul and left Lonesome Blue in the office. He did not see him again before going to the vintage and thought that he had been shipped home. Now, here he was like an apparition, swaying strangely and mournfully in the square like a fading tree without roots in the soil.
Ray’s first impulse was to make a detour and pass by without speaking, but he checked it and went over to him. Lonesome showed no signs of surprise or pleasure when Ray addressed him and asked what he was still doing in Marseilles. He was lifeless, existing mechanically because the life-giving gases still gave him sustenance. The pimples on his face had developed into running sores and the texture of his skin was ash gray. His clothes were like rags eaten at by rats. The suit was originally Ray’s who had received it secondhand from an American friend. It was too large for him and he had given it to Lonesome. The soles of his shoes kept contact with the uppers by being corded round his ankles.
“Where were you all this time?” asked Ray.
“In prison again for two months. The day you left me at the consulate the shipping-master gived me twenty francs and tells me to come back every day until he got a ship for me. I went and got me a room in the Ditch and that same night the police comes and gits me right theah in the hotel. It was the fierst time they done took me out of a hotel. That was jest my hard luck. The time they done gived me for the last expulsion was up and I couldn’t explain them nothing that the consul was gwineta send me back home this time, for I ain’t acquainted with the language,
