Hey, youse guys! Say, listen to me--wait a moment--I gotter talk, see.

I belong and he don't. He's dead but I'm livin'. Listen to me! Sure I'm part of de engines! Why de h.e.l.l not! Dey move, don't dey? Dey're speed, ain't dey? Dey smash trou, don't dey? Twenty-five knots a hour! Dat's goin' some! Dat's new stuff! Dat belongs! But him, he's too old. He gets dizzy. Say, listen. All dat crazy tripe about nights and days; all dat crazy tripe about stars and moons; all dat crazy tripe about suns and winds, fresh air and de rest of it--Aw h.e.l.l, dat's all a dope dream! Hittin' de pipe of de past, dat's what he's doin'. He's old and don't belong no more. But me, I'm young! I'm in de pink! I move wit it!

It, get me! I mean de ting dat's de guts of all dis. It ploughs trou all de tripe he's been sayin'. It blows dat up! It knocks dat dead! It slams dat off en de face of de oith! It, get me! De engines and de coal and de smoke and all de rest of it! He can't breathe and swallow coal dust, but I kin, see? Dat's fresh air for me! Dat's food for me! I'm new, get me? h.e.l.l in de stokehole? Sure! It takes a man to work in h.e.l.l. h.e.l.l, sure, dat's my fav'rite climate. I eat it up! I git fat on it! It's me makes it hot! It's me makes it roar! It's me makes it move!

Sure, on'y for me everyting stops. It all goes dead, get me? De noise and smoke and all de engines movin' de woild, dey stop. Dere ain't nothin' no more! Dat's what I'm sayin'. Everyting else dat makes de woild move, somep'n makes it move. It can't move witout somep'n else, see? Den yuh get down to me. I'm at de bottom, get me! Dere ain't nothin' foither. I'm de end! I'm de start! I start somep'n and de woild moves! It--dat's me!--de new dat's moiderin' de old! I'm de ting in coal dat makes it boin; I'm steam and oil for de engines; I'm de ting in noise dat makes yuh hear it; I'm smoke and express trains and steamers and factory whistles; I'm de ting in gold dat makes it money!

And I'm what makes iron into steel! Steel, dat stands for de whole ting! And I'm steel--steel--steel! I'm de muscles in steel, de punch behind it! [_As he says this he pounds with his fist against the steel bunks. All the men, roused to a pitch of frenzied self-glorification by his speech, do likewise. There is a deafening metallic roar, through which Yank's voice can be heard bellowing._] Slaves, h.e.l.l! We run de whole woiks. All de rich guys dat tink dey're somep'n, dey ain't nothin'! Dey don't belong. But us guys, we're in de move, we're at de bottom, de whole ting is us! [_Paddy from the start of Yank's speech has been taking one gulp after another from his bottle, at first frightenedly, as if he were afraid to listen, then desperately, as if to drown his senses, but finally has achieved complete indifferent, even amused, drunkenness. Yank sees his lips moving. He quells the uproar with a shout._] Hey, youse guys, take it easy! Wait a moment! De nutty Harp is sayin' someth'n.

PADDY--[_Is heard now--throws his head back with a mocking burst of laughter._] Ho-ho-ho-ho-ho---

YANK--[_Drawing back his fist, with a snarl._] Aw! Look out who yuh're givin' the bark!

PADDY--[_Begins to sing the "Muler of Dee" with enormous good-nature._]

"I care for n.o.body, no, not I, And n.o.body cares for me."

YANK--[_Good-natured himself in a flash, interrupts PADDY with a slap on the bare back like a report._] Dat's de stuff! Now yuh're gettin'

wise to somep'n. Care for n.o.body, dat's de dope! To h.e.l.l wit 'em all!

And nix on n.o.body else carin'. I kin care for myself, get me! [_Eight bells sound, m.u.f.fled, vibrating through the steel walls as if some enormous brazen gong were imbedded in the heart of the ship. All the men jump up mechanically, fie through the door silently close upon each other's heels in what is very like a prisoners lockstep. YANK slaps PADDY on the back._] Our watch, yuh old Harp! [_Mockingly._] Come on down in h.e.l.l. Eat up de coal dust. Drink in de heat. It's it, see! Act like yuh liked it, yuh better--or croak yuhself.

PADDY--[_With jovial defiance._] To the divil wid it! I'll not report this watch. Let thim log me and be d.a.m.ned. I'm no slave the like of you. I'll be sittin' here at me ease, and drinking, and thinking, and dreaming dreams.

YANK--[_Contemptuously._] Tinkin' and dreamin', what'll that get yuh?

What's tinkin' got to do wit it? We move, don't we? Speed, ain't it?

Fog, dat's all you stand for. But we drive trou dat, don't we? We split dat up and smash trou--twenty-five knots a hour! [_Turns his back on Paddy scornfully._] Aw, yuh make me sick! Yuh don't belong! [_He strides out the door in rear. Paddy hums to himself, blinking drowsily._]

[_Curtain_]

SCENE II

SCENE--Two days out. A section of the promenade deck. MILDRED DOUGLAS and her aunt are discovered reclining in deck chairs. The former is a girl of twenty, slender, delicate, with a pale, pretty face marred by a self-conscious expression of disdainful superiority. She looks fretful, nervous and discontented, bored by her own anemia. Her aunt is a pompous and proud--and fat--old lady. She is a type even to the point of a double chin and lorgnettes. She is dressed pretentiously, as if afraid her face alone would never indicate her position in life.

MILDRED is dressed all in white.

The impression to be conveyed by this scene is one of the beautiful, vivid life of the sea all about--sunshine on the deck in a great flood, the fresh sea wind blowing across it. In the midst of this, these two incongruous, artificial figures, inert and disharmonious, the elder like a gray lump of dough touched up with rouge, the younger looking as if the vitality of her stock had been sapped before she was conceived, so that she is the expression not of its life energy but merely of the artificialities that energy had won for itself in the spending.

MILDRED--[_Looking up with affected dreaminess._] How the black smoke swirls back against the sky! Is it not beautiful?

AUNT--[_Without looking up._] I dislike smoke of any kind.

MILDRED--My great-grandmother smoked a pipe--a clay pipe.

AUNT--[_Ruffling._] Vulgar!

MILDRED--She was too distant a relative to be vulgar. Time mellows pipes.

AUNT--[_Pretending boredom but irritated._] Did the sociology you took up at college teach you that--to play the ghoul on every possible occasion, excavating old bones? Why not let your great-grandmother rest in her grave?

MILDRED--[_Dreamily._] With her pipe beside her--puffing in Paradise.

AUNT--[_With spite._] Yes, you are a natural born ghoul. You are even getting to look like one, my dear.

MILDRED--[_In a pa.s.sionless tone._] I detest you, Aunt. [_Looking at her critically._] Do you know what you remind me of? Of a cold pork pudding against a background of linoleum tablecloth in the kitchen of a--but the possibilities are wearisome. [_She closes her eyes._]

AUNT--[_With a bitter laugh._] Merci for your candor. But since I am and must be your chaperone--in appearance, at least--let us patch up some sort of armed truce. For my part you are quite free to indulge any pose of eccentricity that beguiles you--as long as you observe the amenities--

MILDRED--[_Drawling._] The inanities?

AUNT--[_Going on as if she hadn't heard._] After exhausting the morbid thrills of social service work on New York's East Side--how they must have hated you, by the way, the poor that you made so much poorer in their own eyes!--you are now bent on making your slumming international. Well, I hope Whitechapel will provide the needed nerve tonic. Do not ask me to chaperone you there, however. I told your father I would not. I loathe deformity. We will hire an army of detectives and you may investigate everything--they allow you to see.

MILDRED--[_Protesting with a trace of genuine earnestness._] Please do not mock at my attempts to discover how the other half lives. Give me credit for some sort of groping sincerity in that at least. I would like to help them. I would like to be some use in the world. Is it my fault I don't know how? I would like to be sincere, to touch life somewhere. [_With weary bitterness._] But I'm afraid I have neither the vitality nor integrity. All that was burnt out in our stock before I was born. Grandfather's blast furnaces, flaming to the sky, melting steel, making millions--then father keeping those home fires burning, making more millions--and little me at the tail-end of it all. I'm a waste product in the Bessemer process--like the millions. Or rather, I inherit the acquired trait of the by-product, wealth, but none of the energy, none of the strength of the steel that made it. I am sired by gold and darned by it, as they say at the race track--d.a.m.ned in more ways than one, [_She laughs mirthlessly_].

AUNT--[_Unimpressed--superciliously._] You seem to be going in for sincerity to-day. It isn't becoming to you, really--except as an obvious pose. Be as artificial as you are, I advise. There's a sort of sincerity in that, you know. And, after all, you must confess you like that better.

MILDRED--[_Again affected and bored._] Yes, I suppose I do. Pardon me for my outburst. When a leopard complains of its spots, it must sound rather grotesque. [_In a mocking tone._] Purr, little leopard. Purr, scratch, tear, kill, gorge yourself and be happy--only stay in the jungle where your spots are camouflage. In a cage they make you conspicuous.

AUNT--I don't know what you are talking about.

MILDRED--It would be rude to talk about anything to you. Let's just talk. [_She looks at her wrist watch._] Well, thank goodness, it's about time for them to come for me. That ought to give me a new thrill, Aunt.

AUNT--[_Affectedly troubled._] You don't mean to say you're really going? The dirt--the heat must be frightful--

MILDRED--Grandfather started as a puddler. I should have inherited an immunity to heat that would make a salamander shiver. It will be fun to put it to the test.

AUNT--But don't you have to have the captain's--or someone's--permission to visit the stokehole?

MILDRED--[_With a triumphant smile._] I have it--both his and the chief engineer's. Oh, they didn't want to at first, in spite of my social service credentials. They didn't seem a bit anxious that I should investigate how the other half lives and works on a ship. So I had to tell them that my father, the president of Nazareth Steel, chairman of the board of directors of this line, had told me it would be all right.

AUNT--He didn't.

MILDRED--How naive age makes one! But I said he did, Aunt. I even said he had given me a letter to them--which I had lost. And they were afraid to take the chance that I might be lying. [_Excitedly._] So it's ho! for the stokehole. The second engineer is to escort me. [_Looking at her watch again._] It's time. And here he comes, I think. [_The SECOND ENGINEER enters, He is a husky, fine-looking man of thirty-five or so. He stops before the two and tips his cap, visibly embarra.s.sed and ill-at-ease._]

SECOND ENGINEER--Miss Douglas?

MILDRED--Yes. [_Throwing off her rugs and getting to her feet._] Are we all ready to start?

SECOND ENGINEER--In just a second, ma'am. I'm waiting for the Fourth.

He's coming along.

MILDRED--[_With a scornful smile._] You don't care to shoulder this responsibility alone, is that it?

SECOND ENGINEER--[_Forcing a smile._] Two are better than one.

[_Disturbed by her eyes, glances out to sea--blurts out._] A fine day we're having.

MILDRED--Is it?

SECOND ENGINEER--A nice warm breeze--

MILDRED--It feels cold to me.