Edna Ferber: Buttered Side Down

12. XII. WHERE THE CAR TURNS AT 18TH (continued)

"I always did like the water," he said.

"Sure," agreed the hairy man, heartily. "What young feller don't? I'll tell you what. Come on over to the office with me and I'll show you some real stuff."

"It's my supper time," hesitated Eddie. "I guess I'd better not----"

"Oh, supper," laughed the man. "You come on and have supper with me, kid."

Eddie's pink cheeks went three shades pinker. "Gee! That'd be great. But my mother--that is--she----"

The man in the sailor suit laughed again--a laugh with a sting in it. "A great big feller like you ain't tied to your ma's apron strings are you?"

"Not much I'm not!" retorted Eddie. "I'll telephone her when I get to your hotel, that's what I'll do."

But they were such fascinating things, those new booklets, and the man had such marvelous tales to tell, that Eddie forgot trifles like supper and waiting mothers. There were pictures taken on board ship, showing frolics, and ball games, and minstrel shows and glee clubs, and the men at mess, and each sailor sleeping snug as a bug in his hammock. There were other pictures showing foreign scenes and strange ports. Eddie's tea grew cold, and his apple pie and cheese lay untasted on his plate.

"Now me," said the recruiting officer, "I'm a married man. But my wife, she wouldn't have it no other way. No, sir! She'll be in the navy herself, I'll bet, when women vote. Why, before I joined the navy I didn't know whether Guam was a vegetable or an island, and Culebra wasn't in my geography. Now? Why, now I'm as much at home in Porto Rico as I am in San Francisco. I'm as well acquainted in Valparaiso as I am in Vermont, and I've run around Cairo, Egypt, until I know it better than Cairo, Illinois. It's the only way to see the world. You travel by sea from port to port, from country to country, from ocean to ocean, amid ever-changing scenery and climatic conditions, to see and study the----"