"Who the devil's this?" He indicated a man sprawled in one of the bunks,
who, despite a stubble of beard and ill-fitting sea clothes, was
unmistakably a gentleman.
"Don't know--rum sort for a sailor. Got knocked on the head in a
scrimmage. Cawnt remember nothing but his name, Francisco."
CHAPTER LXXIII
THE RETURN
In the fall of 1898 a man of middle years walked slowly down the stairs
which plunged a traveler from the new Ferry building's upper floor into
the maelstrom of Market street's beginning. Cable cars were whirling on
turn-tables, newsboys shouted afternoon editions; hack drivers, flower
vendors, train announcers added their babel of strident-toned outcries
to the clanging of gongs, the clatter of wheels and hoofs upon
cobblestone streets. Ferry sirens screamed; an engine of the Belt Line
Railroad chugged fiercely as it pulled a train of freight cars toward
the southern docks.
The stranger paused, apparently bewildered by this turmoil.
He was a stalwart, rather handsome man, bearded and bronzed as if
through long exposure. And in his walk there was a suggestion of that
rolling gait which smacks of maritime pursuits. He proceeded aimlessly
up Market street, gazing round him, still with that odd, half-doubting
and half-troubled manner.
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