walk roun' an' say cuss word, yaas!"

"Oh, mon Dieu, mon Dieu!" groaned Madame Garcia, rocking her
guinea-blue-clad self to and fro.

Mr. Baptiste picked up his nondescript head-cover and walked out
through the brick-reddened alley, talking excitedly to himself.
Madame Garcia called after him to know if he did not want his
luncheon, but he shook his head and passed on.

Down on the levee it was even as Mr. Baptiste had said. The
'long-shoremen, the cotton-yardmen, and the stevedores had gone
out on a strike. The levee lay hot and unsheltered under the
glare of a noonday sun. The turgid Mississippi scarce seemed to
flow, but gave forth a brazen gleam from its yellow bosom. Great
vessels lay against the wharf, silent and unpopulated. Excited
groups of men clustered here and there among bales of
uncompressed cotton, lying about in disorderly profusion.
Cargoes of molasses and sugar gave out a sticky sweet smell, and
now and then the fierce rays of the sun would kindle tiny blazes
in the cotton and splinter-mixed dust underfoot.

Mr. Baptiste wandered in and out among the groups of men,
exchanging a friendly salutation here and there. He looked the
picture of woe-begone misery.

"Hello, Mr. Baptiste," cried a big, brawny Irishman, "sure an'
you look, as if you was about to be hanged."

"Ah, mon Dieu," said Mr. Baptiste, "dose fruit ship be ruined fo'