Men, Women, and Boats by Stephen Crane
page 80 of 206 (38%)
page 80 of 206 (38%)
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The passengers on a ferry-boat all ran to the near railing. A miraculous person in a small boat was bobbing on the waves near the piers. He sculled hastily toward the scene. It was a swirl of waters in the midst of which the dark bottom of the boat appeared, whale-like. Two heads suddenly came up. "839," said the freckled man, chokingly. "That's it! 839!" "What is?" said the tall man. "That's the number of that feller on Park Place. I just remembered." "You're the bloomingest--" the tall man said. "It wasn't my fault," interrupted his companion. "If you hadn't--" He tried to gesticulate, but one hand held to the keel of the boat, and the other was supporting the form of the oarsman. The latter had fought a battle with his immense rubber boots and had been conquered. The rescuer in the other small boat came fiercely. As his craft glided up, he reached out and grasped the tall man by the collar and dragged him into the boat, interrupting what was, under the circumstances, a very brilliant flow of rhetoric directed at the freckled man. The oarsman of the wrecked craft was taken tenderly over the gunwale and laid in the bottom of the boat. Puffing and blowing, the freckled man climbed in. "You'll upset this one before we can get ashore," the other voyager |
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