I felt it so the moment I stood before the girl in the cream serge suit.
My drill outfit, that I had thought rather clean when I brushed the
shell grit from it after my sleep on the wharf, looked as black as the
devil's tail when she appeared. My hands appeared to be several degrees
larger than the prize hams that come out of Kansas, and my tongue, as if
it recognized the stupidity of the remarks I attempted to make, started
to play fool stunts as if it wanted to go down my throat and choke me to
death.
The girl guessed the sort of predicament I was in at that moment. God
only knows how many months had passed since I had spoken to a woman like
her. Not that good women are lacking in the Islands, but because they
were on a different plane to me. I had been belting native crews on
trading schooners between the Carolines and the Marquesas, and when
ashore I had little opportunity for speaking to a woman of the type of
Edith Herndon.
And she understood the feeling that held me tongue-tied. To make me feel
at my ease she started to tell of everything that had happened from the
moment that _The Waif_ had cleared Sydney Heads, and the time she
spent in that recital was as precious to me as the two-minute interval
between rounds is to a prize-fighter who has been knocked silly the
moment before the round ends.
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