She commiserated him for this; then suddenly exclaimed:

"No, you must go down to the dock! You ought to, Condy Oh, I tell
you, let me go down with you!"

In an instant Condy leaped to the notion. "Splendid! splendid! no
reason why you shouldn't!" he exclaimed. And within fifteen
minutes the two were treading the wharves and quays of the city's
water-front.

Ships innumerable nuzzled at the endless line of docks, mast
overspiring mast, and bowsprit overlapping bowsprit, till the eye
was bewildered, as if by the confusion of branches in a leafless
forest. In the distance the mass of rigging resolved itself into
a solid gray blur against the sky. The great hulks, green and
black and slate gray, laid themselves along the docks, straining
leisurely at their mammoth chains, their flanks opened, their
cargoes, as it were their entrails, spewed out in a wild disarray
of crate and bale and box. Sailors and stevedores swarmed them
like vermin. Trucks rolled along the wharves like peals of
ordnance, the horse-hoofs beating the boards like heavy drum-taps.
Chains clanked, a ship's dog barked incessantly from a
companionway, ropes creaked in complaining pulleys, blocks
rattled, hoisting-engines coughed and strangled, while all the air
was redolent of oakum, of pitch, of paint, of spices, of ripe
fruit, of clean cool lumber, of coffee, of tar, of bilge, and the
brisk, nimble odor of the sea.

Travis was delighted, her little brown eyes snapping, her cheeks
flushing, as she drank in the scene.