1919 Read Online Free PDF Page A

the hotel . . . like to look at them?”
    â€œI sure would.”
    The rain stopped. The pavement was already dry when they came out of the bar.
    â€œSay, I’m going to take a ride around this island. Tell me you can see wild monkeys and all sorts of things. Why don’t you come along? I’m bored to death of sightseeing by myself.”
    Joe thought a minute. “These clothes ain’t fit. . . .”
    â€œWhat the hell, this isn’t Fifth Avenue. Come ahead.” The man who said his name was Jones signalled a nicely polished Ford driven by a young chinaman. The chinaman wore glasses and a dark blue suit and looked like a college student; he talked with an English accent. He said he’d drive them round the town and out to the Blue Pool. As they were setting off the man who said his name was Jones said, “Wait a minute,” and ran in the bar and got a flask of Planter’s punch.
    He talked a blue streak all the time they were driving out past the British bungalows and brick institution buildings and after that out along the road through rubbery blue woods so dense and steamy it seemed to Joe there must be a glass roof overhead somewhere. He said how he liked adventure and travel and wished he was free to ship on boats and bum around and see the world and that it must be wonderful to depend only on your own sweat and muscle the way Joe was doing. Joe said, “Yare?” But the man who said his name was Jones paid no attention and went right on and said how he had to take care of his mother and that was a great responsibility and sometimes he thought he’d go mad and he’d been to a doctor about it and the doctor had advised him to take a trip, but that the food wasn’t any good on the boat and gave him indigestion and it was all full of old women with daughters they wanted to marry off and it made him nervous having women run after him like that. The worst of it was not having a friend to talk to about whatever he had on his mind when he got lonely. He wished he had a nice good looking fellow who’d been around and wasn’t a softy and knew what life was and could appreciate beauty for a friend, a fellow like Joe in fact. His mother was awfully jealous and didn’t like the idea of his having any intimate friends and would always get sick or try to hold out on his allowance when she found out about his having any friends, because she wanted him to be always tied to her apron strings but he was sick and tired of that and from now on he was going to do what he damn pleased, and she didn’t have to know about everything he did anyway.
    He kept giving Joe cigarettes and offering them to the chinaman who said each time, “Thank you very much, sir. I have forgone smoking.” Between them they had finished the flask of punch and the man who said his name was Jones was beginning to edge over towards Joe in the seat, when the chinaman stopped the car at the end of a little path and said, “If you wish to view the Blue Pool you must walk up there almost seven minutes, sir. It is the principal attraction of the island of Trinidad.”
    Joe hopped out of the car and went to make water beside a big tree with shaggy red bark. The man who said his name was Jones came up beside him. “Two minds with but a single thought,” he said. Joe said, “Yare,” and went and asked the chinaman where they could see some monkeys.
    â€œThe Blue Pool,” said the chinaman, “is one of their favorite re
sorts.” He got out of the car and walked around it looking intently with his black beads of eyes into the foliage over their heads. Suddenly he pointed. Something black was behind a shaking bunch of foliage. A screechy giggle came from behind it and three monkeys went off flying from branch to branch with long swinging leaps. In a second they were gone and all you could see was the branches stirring at intervals through the woods