Picture Play Magazine (Oct-Nov 1915)

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PICTURE-PLAY WEEKLY me if you'll help me get 'em aboard that ship you see moored at the end of the wharf here. What d'yuh say, is it a bargain?" At the mention of three dollars, the look of gloom had lifted from Charlie's face. That sum would make life a little more worth living — for as long as it lasted, that is. He regarded the mate with a slow smile. "It's a penitentiary offense to ship men on board a vessel against their will, isn't it?" Charlie inquired. "The law calls it 'shanghaing,' doesn't it?" The mate shifted his quid of tobacco from one bearded cheek to the other, and his eyes at the same time nervously from side to side. "Well, uh course, if you've been careful brought up," said he, "and feel that you'd be doin' wrong *' "Not at all !" Charlie hastily broke in. "I don't mind shanghaing anybody so long as I can profit by it. You said you'd pay me three dollars, didn't you?" "When the job's done," nodded the mate, "I'll lay the money right in yer hand. Come ahead, now, an' I'll show you what I want yuh ter do." The mate led Charlie to the end of the wharf beside which the Sally Ann was moored. There was an empty barrel standing at the edge of the dock, and into it the mate instructed Charlie to climb. Then, giving him a short-handled mallet, and a set of instructions to follow, the mate went back to where the three sailors were still sitting. Reaching around the corner of the watchman's shanty, the mate tugged at the sleeve of the sailor on the end of the bench. He showed the tar a flask of whisky, and then, beckoning suggestively to him to follow, walked back to the front of the wharf. ^ The mate handed the flask to the sailor, and snapped his fingers twice. Charlie rose out of the barrel behind his unsuspecting victim, and swung the mallet aloft. Then he brought it down on the sailor's head. The latter's eyes slowly closed, his head rolled loosely on his neck, and he would have droppecr* the flask from his hand — had not Charlie deftly relieved him of it. The mate, gathering the unwary tar's limp body into f% arm as it fell, hewed it over the side of the ship and down onto its deck. He turned back in time to see Charlie helping himself to a liberal pull on the flask. Giving him a blow on the back, which sent the liquor in a thin 1, Charlie!" breathed the girl. "Your style making love is so different !" stream out of Charlie's mouth, the mate impatiently snatched the flask out of his hand and went back to the watchman's shanty to use it once more as a decoy to draw another of the sailors into his power. It was the sailor with the falsetto voice and the ladylike manners who accompanied the mate back to the end of the wharf this time. Charlie rose from the barrel, as he heard the sailor's effeminate tones lifted in a repetition of his statement concerning the unseaworthiness of the Sally Ann, a look of pained surprise overspreading his face. He rolled back his sleeve, and when he brought the mallet down on the head of this sailor it was with added force. The mate threw the second senseless member of the crew of the vessel aboard it, and then departed to bring back the last of the three sailors from beside the watchman's shanty. Charlie, rising once more from the barrel, noticed that this tar was wearing a hat that was better than his own. He removed it from his victim's head. Immediately the sailor, feeling the wind playing through his exposed locks, raised his hand to his head and started to look behind him to discover the invisible force which had lifted off his hat. Charlie descended from view into the barrel. When the sailor turned back to question the mate concerning the phenomenon, Charlie rose again and tapped him with the mallet. As the mate heaved the last of the three sailors on board the vessel, Charlie was absorbed in the task of smoothing the nap on the hat with his sleeve. The captain, at that moment, appeared on the scene to find out from the mate how the latter was progressing with the work of assembling the crew. Charlie, quickly dropping the hat down into the barrel behind him, picked up the mallet with the laudable intention of resuming his work. He smote the captain on the head, thinking him another of the mate's intended victims— and seeing another dollar to add to the three that had been promised him, in view. The captain bellowed with the pain of the blow, which, thanks to the thickness of his skull, had not exerted the soporific effect upon him that it had in the cases of the three sailors on whom Charlie had previously operated. The mate, straightening the cap on the head of his superior officer, shouted an explanation to Charlie of his mistake, above the captain's roaring. of