I remembered that this tremendous indictment
against Fortune touched the family, and that the distressed
fisherman was provided with clothes, food, and some small change.
The food and small change had disappeared, but the garments for the
consumptive wife, where were they? He had been using them for a
pillow.
I instantly pointed out this fact, and charged him with the
deception. To my surprise, he took it quietly, and even a little
complacently.
"Bedad, yer roight; ye see, sur" (confidentially), "ye see, sur,
until I get worruk--and it's worruk I'm lukin' for--I have to
desave now and thin to shute the locality. Ah, God save us! but on
the say-coast thay'r that har-rud upon thim that don't belong to
the say."
I ventured to suggest that a strong, healthy man like him might
have found work somewhere between Milwaukee and Boston.
"Ah, but ye see I got free passage on a freight train, and didn't
sthop. It was in the Aist that I expected to find worruk."
"Have you any trade?"
"Trade, is it? I'm a brickmaker, God knows, and many's the lift
I've had at makin' bricks in Milwaukee.
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