an appropriate climax to his folly, Sinker Jordan surrendered their remaining capital into the greedy palm of the landlady—and a real lady too, she admitted. But, having previously eaten, they had all the hope of a full belly and their youth—they slept, Sinker without care and without effort.
Eugene was early up at dawn, and after futile efforts to waken the luxuriously somnolent Sinker, he was off to the dingy yellow piers along the waterfront, which were stored with munitions for the war. After a morning tramping up and down the dusty road outside the guarded enclosure, he had obtained employment for himself and Sinker from the chief checker, a nervous ugly man, swollen with petty tyranny. He had gimlet eyes, glittering below spectacles, and hard muscular jaws that writhed constantly.
Eugene went to work at seven the next morning—Sinker, a day or two later, only when his last small coin had vanished. Eugene screwed up his pride and borrowed a few dollars from one of the other checkers. On this he and Sinker lived meagerly until pay-day— which was only a few days off. This money slipped quickly through their careless fingers. Down to a few coins again, with the next pay-day almost two weeks off, Sinker gambled at dice with the checkers, behind the great fortress of sacked oats upon the pier— lost, won, lost, rose penniless and cursing God. Eugene knelt beside the checkers, with his last half-dollar in his palm, heedless of Sinker’s bitter taunt. He had never thrown dice before: naturally, he won—$8.50. He rose exultantly from their profane surprise, and took Sinker to dinner at the best hotel.
A day or two later, he went behind the oats again, gambled with his last dollar—and lost.
He began to starve. Day crawled into weary day. The fierce eye of July beat down upon the pier with a straight insufferable glare. The boats and trains slid in and out, crammed to the teeth with munitions—with food for the soldiers. The hot grainy air on the pier swam before his eyes speckled with dancing patches, and he made weary tallies on a sheet as the big black stevedores swarmed past him with their trunks. Sinker Jordan cadged small sums from the other checkers, and lived miserably on
