colorless beard sadly, and halt, and look out over the harbor with something like a sigh. Then, changing the subject with laborious tact, he would exclaim, in the surprised tone of a good child, "This town's got a pop'lation of three hund'ed and ten thousand!" or, "The old man tells me it's only a fortnight to Jerusalem and all them holy places. Think o' that, boy!"
The crew came back at different hours after midnight, in different stages of disorder. Marden felt toward them an odd mixture of repulsion and envy, and was ashamed of something that he could not quite name.
On the last night ashore, however, a strange thing happened. The crew had halted before the mouth of an alleyway, and were looking in to see whether the fierce eddy of Sicilian men and women there meant a riot or a family rejoicing. Marden, on the outskirts of their own group, felt a plucking at his elbow, and turned to look down into the ugly face of Jerry Fox, with his harelip and bulging, frog-like eyes. The creature winked, beckoned, and then waddled off on his bowlegs round
