Page:One man's initiation-1917 (IA onemansinitiatio00dosprich).pdf/16

Rh "See that guy, the feller with the straw hat; he lost five hundred dollars at craps last night."

"Some stakes."

It is almost dark. Sea and sky are glowing claret colour, darkened to a cold bluish-green to westward. In a corner of the deck a number of men are crowded in a circle, while one shakes the dice in his hand with a strange nervous quiver that ends in a snap of the fingers as the white dice roll on the deck.

"Seven up."

From the smoking-room comes a sound of singing and glasses banged on tables.

""Oh, we've bound for the Hamburg show,

To see the elephant and the wild kangaroo,

An' we'll all stick together

In fair or foul weather,

For we've going to see the damn show through!""

On the settee a sallow young man is shaking the ice in a whisky-and-soda into a nervous tinkle as he talks:

"There's nothing they can do against this new gas It just corrodes the lungs as if they were rotten in a dead body. In the hospitals they just stand the poor devils up against a wall and let them die. They say their skin turns green and that it takes from five to seven days to die—five to seven days of slow choking."

"Oh, but I think it’s so splendid of you"—she bared all her teeth, white and regular as