King Kong (1932) Read Online Free PDF Page A

lady commanded. Some wore hardly that much. Lumpy, sprawling in the shade alongside an inert Ignatz, was as naked as a Sioux down to his waist. There was nothing, not even an excess of flesh, to keep an interested anatomist from counting every one of his hard, thin ribs. From his waist hung a pair of frayed trousers that stopped halfway between his sharp old knees and his sharper ankles. And, on his own word, that was everything ... to the last patch and thread.
    It was a costume admirably suited to the temperature. And yet the temperature might have been hotter, considering that the  Wanderer  ploughed the sultry latitudes of the Indian Ocean. The  Wanderer 's first mate, in ducks and a pongee shirt, was fairly cool. At least he would have been if he had not worked up a warm impatience over the failure of an expected figure to appear.
    Ann did appear at last. She was wearing white, too, a soft linen sun hat, a stiffly starched linen dress, canvas shoes, but no more stockings than Lumpy himself. Her rounded ankles were shaded as golden as autumn leaves. And sunburn laid a rosy shadow upon her cheeks.
    "Good afternoon, Lumpy," she called.
    Lumpy sat up, and rubbed his sun-kissed ribs, and made Ignatz sit up also, to bow.
    "And what about me?" Driscoll protested.
    "Hello, Jack," Ann smiled.
    "Where have you been so long?"
    "Trying on more costumes for Mr. Denham." She nodded with open satisfaction. "And I looked very nice in them, too."
    "Why not give me a chance to see?"
    "You? You've had chances galore! All the times Mr. Denham has had me out here on deck, making tests."
    "All the times! Once or twice."
    "Dozens of times."
    Driscoll shook his head pityingly.
    "Some people need a lot of convincing before they can make up their minds."
    "It's very important to find out which side of my face photographs best."
    "What's wrong with either side?"
    "Probably Mr. Denham has found a hundred terrible faults."
    "Both sides look good to me."
    Ann beckoned to Ignatz and that eager playmate leaped into her arms. From behind the partial concealment he offered she smiled a little shyly.
    "Yes, but you aren't my movie director."
    "If I were," Driscoll said, turning solemn, "you wouldn't be here."
    "Well! That's a nice thing to say."
    "You know what I mean, Ann!" He maintained solemnity in spite of her beguiling eyes. "It's fine to have you on the ship, of course. But what are you here for? What crazy show is Denham planning to put you through when we get to ... wherever we're going?"
    "I don't care what he is planning. I don't even mind that he is keeping secret where we are going. No matter where we go; no matter what he asks me to do, I've had this." She waved a slim arm to take in all that was visible from the  Wanderer 's stern to her prow. "I've had the happiest time of my life on this old ship."
    "Do you mean that, Ann?"
    "Of course!" But she fled at once into smiling generalities. "Everyone's so nice. Lumpy, and you. Mr. Denham and the Skipper. Isn't the Captain a sweet old lamb?"
    "A what?" Driscoll looked around in dismay lest the crew had heard; or worse, the Skipper himself.
    "I said a sweet old lamb."
    "What a row there'd be," Driscoll cried, "if he heard anyone but you say so!"
    They strolled to the railing and looked idly down upon the tropical sea. The water flashed with countless tiny specks which closer inspection revealed as small jellyfish, each with its miniature upright sail. No one was too large to fit easily into the palm of a hand, but there they were, confidently a-sail in the middle of the ocean. Sea asters, Lumpy called them.
    Ann and Driscoll were contentedly silent. In the weeks which had elapsed since the  Wanderer  left New York, they had come surprisingly close. Driscoll was reticent, and unused to girls; yet he had told Ann about his running away to sea to escape going to college. He had told her of his mother, who had forgiven him and who had braced herself to all his dangerous adventures since his