1919 by John Dos Passos Page B

looking at Joe. “I’ll let you question him.”
    The busylooking young man got to his feet and went up to Joe. “Well, you’ve certainly been making me a lot of trouble, but I’ve been over the records in your case and it looks to me as if you were what you represented yourself to be. . . . What’s your father’s name?”
    â€œSame as mine, Joseph P. Williams. . . . Say, are you the American consul?”
    â€œI’m from the consulate. . . . Say, what the hell do you want to come ashore without a passport for? Don’t you think we have anything better to do than to take care of a lot of damn fools that don’t know enough to come in when it rains? Damn it, I was goin’ to play golf this afternoon and here I’ve been here two hours waiting to get you out of the cooler.”
    â€œJeez, I didn’t come ashore. They come on and got me.”
    â€œThat’ll teach you a lesson, I hope. . . . Next time you have your papers in order.”
    â€œYessirree . . . I shu will.”
    A half an hour later Joe was out on the street, the cigarbox and his old clothes rolled up in a ball under his arm. It was a sunny afternoon; the redfaced people in dark clothes, longfaced women in crummy hats, the streets full of big buses and the tall trolleycars; everything looked awful funny, until he suddenly remembered it was England and he’d never been there before.
    He had to wait a long time in an empty office at the consulate while the busylooking young man made up a lot of papers. He was hungry and kept thinking of beefsteak and frenchfried. At last he was called to the desk and given a paper and told that there was a berth all ready for him on the American steamer
Tampa
, out of Pensacola, and he’d better go right down to the agents and make sure about it and go on board and if they caught him around Liverpool again it would be the worse for him.
    â€œSay, is there any way I can get anything to eat around here, Mr. Consul?” “What do you think this is, a restaurant? . . . No, we have no appropriations for any handouts. You ought to be grateful for what
we’ve done already.” “They never paid me off on the
Argyle
and I’m about starved in that jail, that’s all.” “Well, here’s a shilling but that’s absolutely all I can do.” Joe looked at the coin, “Who’s ’at—King George? Well, thank you, Mr. Consul.”
    He was walking along the street with the agent’s address in one hand and the shilling in the other. He felt sore and faint and sick in his stomach. He saw Mr. Zentner the other side of the street. He ran across through the jammed up traffic and went up to him with his hand held out.
    â€œI got the clothes, Mr. Zentner, it was damn nice of you to send them.” Mr. Zentner was walking along with a small man in an officer’s uniform. He waved a pudgy hand and said, “Glad to be of service to a fellow citizen,” and walked on.
    Joe went into a fried fish shop and spent sixpence on fried fish and spent the other sixpence on a big mug of beer in a saloon where he’d hoped to find free lunch to fill up on but there wasn’t any free lunch. By the time he’d found his way to the agent’s office it was closed and there he was roaming round the streets in the white misty evening without any place to go. He asked several guys around the wharves if they knew where the
Tampa
was docked, but nobody did and they talked so funny he could hardly understand what they said anyway.
    Then just when the streetlights were going on, and Joe was feeling pretty discouraged, he found himself walking down a side street behind three Americans. He caught up to them and asked them if they knew where the
Tampa
was. Why the hell shouldn’t they know, weren’t they off’n her and out to see the goddam town and he’d better