Page:Ambulance 464 by Julien Bryan.djvu/268

 August 24th, 1917. My luck changed this morning just as Job's did one day several thousand years ago. We left the drydock when I was finishing my rooms and fifteen minutes later were passing the Statue of Liberty. Wasn't I happy when we were actually by her and heading straight for Hoboken! We slid into the pier next to the Vaterland; and all of us waited in tense excitement for news from the captain and his payroll. But none came during the morning, so I got on my uniform, lowered all my luggage over the side by the jib crane, and saw about getting it through the customs before the captain returned. The new crew came on at noon and we didn't have to work at all. The payroll didn't come until four o'clock, but I got thirty-seven dollars and fifty cents out of it, which was worth waiting a few hours for. Then I said good-bye to all the crew and disappeared down the ladder. Five minutes later I got my last glimpse of the Luckenbach from the rear end of an old truck on which my baggage and I were bumping along over the cobble-stones to the Twenty-third street ferry. After I got over to Manhattan, I