Once Upon A Time

Book Excerpt: stumps of cigarettes. In a corner was a tin chop-box, whichEverett asked to have removed. It belonged, the landlord told him, tothe man who, two nights before, had occupied the cot and who had died init. Everett was anxious to learn of what he had died. Apparentlysurprised at the question, the Portuguese shrugged his shoulders."Who knows?" he exclaimed. The next morning the English trader acrossthe street assured Everett there was no occasion for alarm. "He didn'tdie of any disease," he explained. "Somebody got at him from thebalcony, while he was in his cot, and knifed him."The English trader was a young man, a cockney, named Upsher. At home hehad been a steward on the Channel steamers. Everett made him his mostintimate friend. He had a black wife, who spent most of her day in afour-post bed, hung with lace curtains and blue ribbon, in which sheresembled a baby hippopotamus wallowing in a bank of white sand.At first the black woman was a shock to Everett, but after Upsherdismissed herRead More