Reckoning of Boston Jim by Claire Mulligan Page B

misty. Whale oil lamps sway overhead amid the pall of tobacco smoke. A night bird flaps against the window.
    The men raise their bottles and glasses.
    â€œHere’s to chasing, how it say, the Gold Butterfly!”
    â€œ Salud oro. Nada mas pero oro. ”
    â€œ D’or! D’or! ”
    â€œTo gold and the bleedin’ captain! He says this girl’s the fastest, if she ain’t we’ll use his bones for fuel!”
    Laughter. Shouts. A dangerous edge to the whole gathering. But Eugene knows it will not turn, close though it may come. There will not be that sudden shift from joviality, sizing ups, verbal parlays, into accusations, flying fists, knives and pistols. It is his particular gift, this being able to predict the life of a revelry—if one is about to begin, how it will end, if it is possible to create out of sullen looks and tired companions an evening worthy of remembrance and retelling. He would rather, say, have the gift for poetry, be as Shelley, Keats and Byron and live passionately through words alone. He would rather, even, have the gift for mathematics and plumb the secrets of God’s universe, like Newton, or like that chap with the telescope. But, ah, one must make do with one’s own gifts.
    Eugene looks to the two men who must be brothers, both being pale and thin-faced and both wearing near-identical apparel: fustian jackets and corduroy trousers and neat caps on black curls.
    â€œWelsh is it? How do you say gold then, in Welsh?”
    â€œ Aur ,” says the one. He is not smiling, nor is he drinking.
    Eugene growls in imitation and the men about him laugh. He is speaking of the unnecessary difficulties inherent in the Welsh tongue when an American of some kind interrupts him. “If you say that word ‘gold’ too much it don’t make no whoreson sense. You start thinking maybe that ain’t the word. Could be any old fart-ass sound. Who decided it’d be that word, not something else?”
    â€œGold is our word, is German word,” a man says jovially. He is thick-bellied and dressed as if for a Sunday outing, has a great silk handkerchief with which he expertly blows his nose. Even Eugene, fond as he is of good apparel, had the sense to wear his blanket coat, his broad-brimmed hat. His checkered frock coat and trousers, his cravat and waistcoat, his collars and top hat, are all nicely packed, at the ready for a suitable occasion, which this, most assuredly, is not.
    â€œYour word is it?” the American says, half rising from the table. He is a ludicrous specimen. Is a jockey-sized, arm-flailing, revel-wrecker who can barely sit still and have a civilized drink.
    â€œGentlemen! Friends! It scarcely matters. Words are the one thing shared by all. They are free. Ale, however, is not.” Eugene shakes the jug at an Italian who is dozing on the bench, nose buried in his beard. “You are standing treat next, sir. We agreed, a round each to wash down that abysmal feed.”
    The Italian explains in broken English that he is tired, that he has had enough.
    â€œEnough? Is that what you will say when you are digging for your gold. Enough! Oh, I cannot dig any longer. I cannot pan. I am so weary. And all the while the gold lies beneath your boots. All the while it shimmers just beyond your reach because you have had, what? Enough! Never!”
    â€œThat’s telling him!”
    â€œ Genugh? Nein! ”
    â€œ Bastante? Nunca! ”
    â€œ Assez? Non! ”
    The Italian stares at them blearily, shambles now to the bar where among the men is a large quantity of Les Canadiens in scarlet vests, their boots on the rails, their faces veiled in pipe smoke, talking in the way of conspirators.
    â€œWhat shall we call our mines then?” Eugene asks. “Ah, better. A contest. We shall ask the captain to choose the best. Each man put in a . . . a greenback is it? The winner takes all.”
    The men debate, up it to two