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PROFESSIONAL
C# AND .NET

INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxxix

▸▸ PART I THE C# LANGUAGE

CHAPTER 1 .NET Applications and Tools. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
CHAPTER 2 Core C#. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
CHAPTER 3 Classes, Records, Structs, and Tuples. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
CHAPTER 4 Object-­Oriented Programming in C#. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
CHAPTER 5 Operators and Casts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
CHAPTER 6 Arrays. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
CHAPTER 7 Delegates, Lambdas, and Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
CHAPTER 8 Collections. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
CHAPTER 9 Language Integrated Query . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226
CHAPTER 10 Errors and Exceptions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263
CHAPTER 11 Tasks and Asynchronous Programming. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 288
CHAPTER 12 Reflection, Metadata, and Source Generators. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307
CHAPTER 13 Managed and Unmanaged Memory. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 335

▸▸ PART II LIBRARIES
CHAPTER 14 Libraries, Assemblies, Packages, and NuGet. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 377
CHAPTER 15 Dependency Injection and Configuration. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 392
CHAPTER 16 Diagnostics and Metrics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 419
CHAPTER 17 Parallel Programming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 440
CHAPTER 18 Files and Streams. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 485
CHAPTER 19 Networking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 520
CHAPTER 20 Security . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 558
CHAPTER 21 Entity Framework Core. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 582
CHAPTER 22 Localization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 644
CHAPTER 23 Tests. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 668

Continues
▸▸ PART III WEB APPLICATIONS AND SERVICES
CHAPTER 24 ASP.NET Core . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 687
CHAPTER 25 Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 714
CHAPTER 26 Razor Pages and MVC. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 752
CHAPTER 27 Blazor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 779
CHAPTER 28 SignalR. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 801

▸▸ PART IV APPS
CHAPTER 29 Windows Apps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 819
CHAPTER 30 Patterns with XAML Apps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 876
CHAPTER 31 Styling Windows Apps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 899

INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 933
PROFESSIONAL

C# and .NET
PROFESSIONAL

C# and .NET
2021 Edition

Christian Nagel
Copyright © 2022 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.

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ISBN: 978-­1-­119-­79721-­0 (ebk)

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 This book is dedicated to my family—­Angela,
Stephanie, Matthias, and Katharina—­I love you all!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR

CHRISTIAN NAGEL is a Microsoft MVP for Visual Studio and Development Technologies
and has been Microsoft Regional Director for more than 15 years. Christian is the founder
of CN innovation, where he offers coaching, training, code reviews, and assistance with
architecting and developing solutions using Microsoft technologies. He draws on more than
25 years of software development experience.
Christian started his computing career with PDP 11 and VAX/VMS systems at Digital
Equipment Corporation, covering a variety of languages and platforms. Since 2000, when
.NET was just a technology preview, he has been working with various technologies to
build .NET solutions. Currently, he mainly coaches people on developing and architecting
solutions based on .NET and Microsoft Azure technologies, including Windows apps, ASP.NET Core, and .NET
MAUI. A big part of his job is helping companies move their solutions to Microsoft Azure.
Even after many years in software development, Christian still loves learning and using new technologies and
teaching others how to use them. Using his profound knowledge of Microsoft technologies, he has written numer-
ous books and is certified as a Microsoft Certified Trainer, Azure Developer Associate, DevOps Engineer Expert,
and Certified Solution Developer. Christian speaks at international conferences such as Microsoft Ignite (previ-
ously named TechEd), BASTA!, and TechDays. You can contact Christian via his website at www.cninnovation
.com, read his blog at csharp.christiannagel.com, and follow his tweets at @christiannagel.

ABOUT THE TECHNICAL EDITOR

ROD STEPHENS is a long-­time developer and author who has written more than 250 mag-
azine articles and 35 books that have been translated into languages around the world.
During his career, Rod has worked on an eclectic assortment of applications in such fields
as telephone switching, billing, repair dispatching, tax processing, wastewater treatment,
concert ticket sales, cartography, and training for professional football teams.
Rod’s popular C# Helper website (www.csharphelper.com) receives millions of hits per
year and contains tips, tricks, and example programs for C# programmers. His VB Helper
website (www.vb-­helper.com) contains similar material for Visual Basic programmers.
You can contact Rod at RodStephens@csharphelper.com or RodStephens@vb-­helper.com.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I WANT TO THANK Charlotte Kughen. For many years and many editions of this book, she has made my text
so much more readable. Often, I completed chapters late in the evening, when I miss things as I turn sentences
around. Charlotte was of enormous help in changing my ideas into great readable text. Charlotte, big thanks for
your continued support with these editions; I’m looking forward to working together in the future as well.
Special thanks also go to Rod Stephens, the technical editor of this edition. Rod had great comments on my
source code and induced some changes that helped with the quality of the source code. Rod is also the author
of some great books, for example Essential Algorithms: A Practical Approach to Computer Algorithms Using
Python and C# and WPF 3d: Three-­Dimensional Graphics with WPF and C#. These books can be a great addi-
tion for your C# bookshelf.
My thanks also go to the complete team working on the book. In particular, I want to thank István Novak, tech-
nical editor of several previous editions of this book. Now István had the role as technical proofreader to solve
some final issues. I also want to thank Kim Wimpsett, who fixed some more text issues during the production
phase, and Barath Kumar Rajasekaran, who helped the flow during production.
I would also like to thank all the people working on C# and .NET, especially Mads Torgersen, who has worked
with his team and the community to bring new features to C#; Richard Lander from the .NET Core team, with
whom I had great discussions on the content and the direction of the book; and David Fowler, who enhances
.NET not only with performance improvements but also usability. Thanks go to Scott Hanselman—­who I have
known for many years from our time together as Microsoft RDs—­for his great ideas and continuously working
with the community. Thanks go to Don Box, who influenced me in the times before .NET was available about
love and freedom (COM and XML).
This edition of the book was born during the COVID-­19 crisis, which changed the business landscape faster than
everyone thought would have been possible. I didn’t have less business during this time as I worked online from
my home office, but during my career, I’d never had less travel. This available time was completely spent work-
ing on the book. On the other hand, for previous editions of this book, I remember working many hours while
waiting at the airport. This time, I wrote the entire book in my home office. I want to give a big thanks to my
wife and my children for supporting my writing. You’ve been enormously helpful and understanding while I was
working on the book for many nights, weekends, and without a vacation (not only because of the coronavirus
crisis). Angela, Stephanie, Matthias, and Katharina—­you are my loved ones. This would not have been possible
without you.
CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION xxxix

PART I: THE C# LANGUAGE

CHAPTER 1: .NET APPLICATIONS AND TOOLS 3

From .NET Framework to .NET Core to .NET 3

.NET Terms 4
.NET SDK 4
.NET Runtime 5
Common Language Runtime 6
.NET Compiler Platform 6
.NET Framework 6
.NET Core 6
.NET 7
.NET Standard 7
NuGet Packages 8
Namespaces 9
.NET Support Length 9
Application Types and Technologies 10
Data Access 10
Windows Apps 11
Web Applications 11
Services 12
SignalR 12
Microsoft Azure 12
Software as a Service 13
Infrastructure as a Service 13
Platform as a Service 13
Functions as a Service 13
Developer Tools 14
.NET CLI 14
Visual Studio Code 14
Visual Studio Community 14
Visual Studio Professional 15
Visual Studio Enterprise 15
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
yuh think o’ that? Give a man the hottest job in Little ol’ Ne’ York, an’
want to keep him on the dry! What’s yours?”
They received his delicate witticisms with appreciative guffaws, and
he beamed with the cordiality of his invitations to drink. He was
flushed with the pride of the native who has returned to his old
haunts, rich with the loot of the alien. “This ’s on me,” he kept
repeating. “What’ll yuh have?”
Soda fizzed, beer frothed, whiskey clucked in the neck of the bottle.
The brown hands went over the bar in an eager scramble, and the
fat barkeeper juggled with glasses, bottles, siphons and boxes of
cigars like a stage magician. “Sure.... On the spring line.... Th’ ol’
Cyrus.... Have a cigar, then.... This ’s on me.”
Doherty, in the background, listened sourly to the laughter of the
deckmen, until he saw the size of the roll of greenbacks which
“Shine” drew from his trousers’ pocket. Then he took a last hasty
gulp of liquor and stood looking fixedly at the bottom of his empty
glass. He put it down on the bar and elbowed his way to “Shine.”
“Have another, Shorty?”
“Naw. I’ve had enough.” He touched “Shine’s” elbow significantly and
slid his eyes around in a sidewise stealthiness without moving his
head. “Nittsy!” he said, out of the corner of his mouth.
“Shine” finished his glass, shook hands with the circle, and followed
his friend to the gangway. “What’s up?”
Doherty seemed embarrassed. “Well, say,” he explained, under his
breath, “they’re a gang o’ strong-arms. I was a-scared they’d get
yuh loaded an’ shove yuh fer yer wad.”
“Shine” laughed. “I guess there’s no one in that bunch o’ ’bos could
frisk me any.”
Doherty wriggled and grinned. “What’re yuh goin’ to do?”
“Me?” “Shine” leaned on the shutter of the gangway and spat at the
water. “I’m goin’ to Coney an’ back.”
The smell of the past was sweet in his nostrils—that indescribable
smell of an excursion steamboat’s lower deck—the bilgy smell of chill
dampness, soiled paint and stale humanity. The churning of the
paddle-wheels and the swish of water under the guard filled his ears
with a remembered music. Hatless, coatless and in his bare feet, he
took the sunshine on a guileless smile and watched the shores of
Long Island gliding past in their old familiar way.
If he had not been blinded by the light and by his own generous
emotions, he might have seen something suspicious below the
manner of his former messmate, who peered at nothing with shaded
eyes that shifted cunningly and a smile that came and went. But
Doherty talked in the voice of friendship, and “Shine” listened,
without looking, basking in his own good nature.
They did not refer to the trouble with Captain Keighley. “Shine” felt
himself guilty of having deserted from that quarrel, and avoided the
mention of it. Doherty had long since concluded that the fire-boat
crew did not intend to avenge his injuries; and he was waiting for an
opportunity to make the “quitters” suffer for having failed him.
He explained that after he “quit handlin’ freight” for the Baltic-
American line, he had gone “cappin’ fer a con man that was workin’
the hucks” on Coney—which is to say, he had been the confederate
in a shell game. He had hoped to start a “graft” of some sort on the
Island himself, but—as he put it plaintively—“a dip went through me
fer all I’d put down, one night when I was paddin’ it in a doss-house
on the Bow’ry.”
“Shine” laughed good-naturedly at this tale of another man’s
misfortunes, as tickled with the sound of his Coney thieves’ slang as
an exiled Highlander who hears his native Scotch.
Doherty licked his lips. “D’ yuh remember Goldy Simpson?”
“Do I?” “Shine” cried. “Me an’ Pikey Moffat—”
“Goldy’s back at Coney.”
“G’ wan! No!”
“Sure. He was up town yesterday lookin’ fer a ballyhoo man.”
“No!” “Shine” laughed immensely.
“By ——, I’d like to see him. I’d like t’ ask him if he remembers the
time me an’ Pikey Moffat—”
“Why don’t yuh?” Doherty cut in. “Yuh c’u’d go back by trolley just
as well as not.”
“Shine” looked doubtfully at his feet.
“Borry a pair o’ kicks an’ a hat in the foc’sle.”
“Shine” hesitated.
“Come on,” Doherty cried. “Let’s blow off up the island together. I’m
lookin’ fer a job boostin’ er ballyhooin’ er somethin’.”
It was the voice of temptation sweetly tuned to “Shine’s” own
inclination. He could, in fact, get back to the fire-boat more quickly
by rail than by water; and even if he did not—if he “stopped over”
long enough to call on “Goldy” and the “gang”—the Leo would carry
back word of his accident in the forepeak, and he could invent more
excuses to explain his further delay.
He said, “Let’s get the boots.” And when the Leo tied up at her pier
on the Coney Island beach, he was helped ashore by Doherty and a
deck-hand who had lent him a hat, a coat and a pair of shoes for
two dollars.
 XIX

T HE Coney Island that they landed on is gone now. It was a

shouting gypsy fair of side shows, beer gardens, dance halls,
chowder tents, shooting galleries and unsavory “joints.” It was not a
sweet resort, but “Shine” walked through it, like an old graduate
through the corridors of his college, fondly reminiscent. He laughed
at the “ballyhoo man” drawing the crowd to a booth with his sword-
swallowing and his fire-eating. He listened appreciatively to the art
of a “spieler” praising a “performance inside;” and he turned to smile
on a “booster” who put a shoulder behind him and gently impelled
him towards the ticket office. He sniffed the odor of steaming
frankfurters and fried crabs. He stood grinning before a merry-go-
round that ground out a deafening cacophany from a German organ.
And Doherty, beside him, had to stand and listen, grin and
comment, with a hypocritical pretence of delight—working his toes
secretly in his broken shoes, meanwhile, to ease the itch of his
impatience to get on.
They got on, at last, to a saloon which Doherty had been heading
for. It was a pine “front” with a sign that pictured a beer glass as big
as a pail, marked “My Size! Five Cents!” They went past the bar to
the deserted little drinking room beyond it, and sat down at a table
beside a door which “Shine” did not notice—and Doherty did. The
walls were covered with colored tissue papers, cut and folded in fans
and circles, and with printed invitations to the public not to forget
the “receptions” of some half-dozen “associations.” These were a
“Welcome Home” to “Shine”; and he read them almost sentimentally
while Doherty was gone to speak to the “barkeep” who was a
“frien’” of his.
When he came back with two glasses of beer, “Shine” received his
glass with a “Here’s lookin’ at yuh” that was warm. He drank a deep
libation, open-throated, without tasting. He put the glass down and
smiled. “Bum booze,” he said, clucking over a bitterness that burned
his tongue.
Doherty kept his snub nose in his “schooner.”
“Shine” looked up at an “invitation” above him, and drank again to
quench a sudden heat in his mouth.
“Say,” he said thickly, “I don’t like this beer.”
“Mine’s all right,” Doherty assured him. “I’ll get y’ another.”
Before he returned, “Shine” had drained the first glass. He took the
second unsteadily, grinning at Doherty to cover the fact that he
could not think of what he had intended to say. He drank thirstily,
put down his glass and blinked. He had become conscious of a great
lapse of time. It seemed to him that he had been silent for an hour.
He began to talk very busily, but without any great success in saying
anything; and to lubricate his difficulty in articulation he drank and
drank. “How’s that?” Doherty asked him, with each successive glass,
and “Shine” assured him—as well as he could—that it was “A’ right a’
right.”
“How’s that?” Doherty asked at last, exultingly; and his voice came
to “Shine” as a thin rustle of hoarse sound. The wall seemed to be
bellying like a curtain in a draught. “I’m fu’,” he said, and laughed
tipsily.
The room had begun to swim around him, and he drank again, to
steady it. It revolved faster and faster. He shut his eyes and tried to
sit tight, but could not keep his balance. The motion dizzied him. He
rested his head on the table, feeling very tired and very sleepy; and
he decided that he would remain there until the world around him
returned to a state of rest.
When he woke again, in a semi-stupor—it seemed only a few
minutes later—he felt someone kicking the soles of his bare feet. He
was lying on the floor of a room, stripped to his undershirt and
trousers. He could not see Doherty anywhere. A stranger was
saying, “Look-a-here, ‘Shine.’ That partner o’ yours, Doherty, was in
to see me this mornin’. He said yuh wanted a job ballyhooin’. He said
yuh’d do me a barefoot dance fer the price of a pair o’ boots. Is that
right?”
He grinned a grin of malice that showed the gold in all his huge
teeth; and “Shine” recognized “Goldy” Simpson.
 XX

G OLDY SIMPSON!—proprietor of the “Alhambra of Mystic marvels

and Persian Beauty Show” that had a large and gaudy entrance
on one of the Island’s “avenues” and an inconspicuous exit on a
neighboring walk. Its promises of entertainment were as lavish as
the paint on its front canvas, and its fulfilment of them as shabby as
the bleached pine of its back door. Its whole staff, in fact, was
employed in drawing the public past its ticket office. Once inside the
booth, you found nothing but three scrawny “Persian Beauties”
posed on a curtained stage; the eloquent Simpson rose to make
more promises of what was to be seen, for another payment, still
further in, where the police could not interfere; and the “boosters”
led those who paid, down a dark passage, to the exit—and laughed
at them in the street.
It was to this cave of robbers that “Shine” was led—led by the
promise that if he assisted the “show” for the afternoon, he would
be paid off at night with 25 cents for car fare, a pair of old shoes, a
cap and a coat in which to return to town. He had to accept the
offer; there was nothing else to be done; and he was in no condition
to think of anything else even if there had been anything.
They dressed him to represent a Hindoo snake-charmer, in a white
cotton undershirt, baggy chintz trousers, Turkish bath-slippers and a
turban made of several twisted towels. Still half-stupefied by
Doherty’s “knockout drops,” he was shoved out on a platform before
the “Alhambra,” heard muffled voices around him, saw upturned
faces below him in a sort of crowded nightmare, and went out into
the sunlight and came back into the dark, without understanding the
orders he obeyed—dazed and sullen, and all the time groping in the
uproar of a drugged brain for a thought that moved somewhere in
the obscurity every time Doherty’s face flashed across his memory.
He could not recall what had happened. He knew that he had been
with Doherty—but that was all.
When the costumed staff of the “Alhambra” sat down, inside the
booth, to a supper that had been brought in from a neighboring New
England kitchen—to save the necessity of changing clothes and
going out to an eating house—“Shine” found himself with Simpson,
Simpson’s wife, who was the cashier of the ticket office, a boy called
“Butts,” who turned the crank of the mechanical piano, and three
flaxen-wigged “Queens of the Harem” wrapped in faded dressing
robes. Frankfurters, sandwiches and beer had been laid out like a
picnic on a trestle-table of rough boards. In the dim light that
filtered through a dirty skylight overhead, the powdered shoulders of
the women were wanly white and their unpowdered hands were not.
“Shine” sat humped over his food, unable to eat.
Several times he looked up with a momentary blink of intelligence,
and then frowned about him in a helpless return of his stupor, his
head aching as if it would split. He put his hand to his forehead and
cleared his throat. He asked, in a husky and uncertain voice:
“Where’s ... Doherty?”
Simpson was enjoying the situation. “I guess he’s blowed. I ain’t
seen him since mornin’.”
“What’d he tell yuh?”
“He said yuh was over at Timmin’s lookin’ fer a job.”
“Shine” looked up under his eyebrows with a bloodshot glower. “He
sloughed me fer ev’rythin’ I had on me.”
“I guess you’re right,” Simpson said. “He looked like he had.”
“Shine” put his elbows on the table and rested his head in his hands.
Simpson winked at his wife. The Queens of the Harem smiled
appreciatively, but with care—on account of their “makeup.”
After a long silence, “Shine” said weakly, “I got to get back to the
boat, I’m off without leave. Gi’ me a pair o’ boots an’ le’ me go.”
“Sure thing,” Simpson promised. “There’s a fullah promised he’d be
here t’night. I’ll let yuh go as soon ’s he comes.”
“I got to go now.”
“Long way to walk—in bare hoofs, too. Better work out yer contrac’.”
“Shine” tried to focus a wavering eye on him. “Yuh’re in this with
Doherty,” he said. “Yuh damn double-crosser. Yuh dirty back-capper!”
Simpson replied, with meaning, “D’ yuh mind the time yuh handed
me over to Pikey Moffat? Think about it.” He got up from the table.
“Think about it,” he said as he went out.
His wife brushed the crumbs from the lap of her flowered satin
evening gown, and followed him. The beauties in the bath robes
trailed off to their dressing-room. The boy began to gather up the
beer mugs.
He looked commiseratingly at “Shine.” “Wish yuh had my job,” he
said. “I dreamt I was a music box las’ night, an’ they wound me up
by the arm. I got a cramp in ’t this mornin’, an’ he says he’ll dock me
ten cents fer slowin’ down to rub it.”
“Shine” did not speak.
The boy looked after the Queens of the Harem. “Wish I was a
woman,” he said, “an’ didn’t have to do nuthin’ but look
picturesquew.”
He sighed. He pinched off the lighted end of his cigarette, put the
butt in his pocket, and went out, grumbling, with the beer mugs.
“Shine” remained hunched over the table, staring at nothing and
slowly gathering venom. When he went out to the platform, he was
full of it, bitter with it, almost indeed sober and clear-headed with it.
 XXI

“L ADIES an’ gen’leman,” Simpson announced, “I’m from Texas. I’m

from Texas where they valyoo friendship more than money. An’
what I’m goin’ to tell yuh is between man an’ man.” He straightened
up with dignity. “I’m the pro-prietor o’ this show. I’m monarch of all I
survey.”
He waved his hand from the display of his wife’s shoulders in the
ticket office to the oil canvases of the Indian nautch girls, the
skeleton man, the “Wizard of the West,” the “Demon Diavolo” eating
fire, and the “Modern Samson” lifting ton weights—to the three
Queens of the Harem, sitting on the platform with “Shine,” under the
flare of a gasoline “torch”—to the curtained door that led into the
“Alhambra of Mystic Marvels and Persian Beauty Show.”
He screamed with a sudden inconsequent passion: “I don’t hire men
to come out here an’ lie to yuh! No! I’m tryin’ to make an hones’ livin’
fer myself an’ the fines’ comp’ny o’ performers that ever appeared
together under one management on Coney Island!” He wiped his
forehead. He lowered his voice. “An’ to tell youse the truth, boys, it’s
the toughest proposition I ever went up against.”
It was a Saturday night, and the Island walks were crowded. “Shine”
was looking down on a throng of white faces and eyes that shone in
the light. They laughed.
“I know!” Simpson cried. “Yuh’ve been faked. Yuh’ve been payin’
good money to see a lot o’ ham-fatters an’ chair-warmers—a lot o’
stiffs that couldn’t get hired fer a supper-show up in the city. Ain’t
that right?”
One of his “boosters” in the back of the crowd shouted, “That’s
what’s the matter!”
Simpson threw up his hands. “That’s it! That’s it! An’ because I don’t
come out here an’ promise to give yuh more ’n I got, yuh don’t
believe me. An’ I got the bes’ show on the Island, barrin’ an’
exceptin’ none! A show that on’y costs one dime to witness—an’ it’s
worth a dollar if it’s worth a cent!”
He made a sign to the platform. “Shine” and the three beauties in
tights and tinsel stood up. One of the latter was chewing gum with a
pensive movement of the under jaw.
“First an’ foremost, let me tell yuh,” he said, “I got Kulder, the Hindoo
snake-charmer, sword-swallower, an’ fire-eater.” He pointed to
“Shine.” “Bein’ a native o’ Calcutter, where he was employed by the
Hindoo fire-department, he was kicked out three years ago by the
Durbar because he wouldn’t turn water on a blaze. No! He wanted t’
eat the flames!”
The crowd grinned. “Shine” scowled.
Simpson went on: “He’ll drink anythin’ from boiled bay rum to
knockout drops. He’ll walk barefoot from here to the Batt’ry to get a
look at a fire-boat. He’s the simplest an’ sulkiest an’ treacherest damn
fool of a Hindoo that ever put up a game on a partner. An’ he don’t
understan’ a word yuh say!”
“Shine” muttered to himself. Simpson launched out into a glowing
description of the Beauties of his Persian Harem. He could not bring
them all out on the platform. The police, he whispered, would not let
him. But excepting the secret palace of the Sultan of Turkey, there
was nothing to equal it on this side of Madagascar! Nuthin’!
As for the canvases overhead, they spoke for themselves. They
represented “truthfully an’ without ex-aggeration” a small part of the
mystic marvels to be seen on the inside for the small price of a dime,
ten cents. “A dime! A dime!” he cried. “All free fer a dime!”
The boy struck up a staggering melody on the mechanical piano.
“Shine” and the Beauties retreated through the curtains. The
“boosters” began to shove the crowd in towards the ticket office in a
pretence of eagerness to get good seats for themselves, confiding to
their neighbors that they had heard it was “the goods, all right,
inside.” They paid and passed in; and at least a score of gulls
followed them with more or less doubtfulness.
That was the first “push,” and it was Simpson’s habit to make two
“pushes” before he gave his performance.
While he was inside, waiting for a new audience to gather out in
front, “Shine” accosted him again. “Are yuh goin’ to gi’ me them
boots?”
“Sure thing,” he promised airily. “Soon ’s I get good an’ ready.”
“Shine” nodded and went back to his place behind the curtains.
Simpson saw nothing new in the fireman’s manner. He had been
taunting “Shine” all afternoon with platform insults—which “Shine”
had endured in silence because he had not understood them—and
Simpson had mistaken stupor for meekness.
The net was spread for the second “push” in the same manner as for
the first, though in briefer language, for there was now an impatient
roomful inside, listening.
“An’ here,” Simpson cried, “we have the famous Hindoo snake-
charmer. A pure Brahma—look at his feet. This man, ladies an’
gen’lemen, lives on dope! He wears no socks. Why? Why does he
wear no socks? Be-cause he swapped them this mornin’ fer a quart o’
knockout drops! While ’n under th’ influence o’ that noxious drug,
he’ll swally anythin’—live fire, nails, carpet tacks, jollies er anythin’
else yuh throw into him. He—”
“Are yuh goin’ to gi’ me them boots?” “Shine” growled.
The crowd heard him and drew in closer, scenting trouble. Simpson
heard him and veered off. “An’ next we have three ladies from th’
Imperial Harem o’ Madagascar—”
“Are yuh goin’ to gi’ me them boots?”
Simpson raised his voice to drown the laughter. “Three o’ the faires’
flowers in Eastern womanhood! On th’ inside we have no less ’n
twenty-seven—”
“He’s a liar!” “Shine” shouted to the crowd. “He’s a liar. He’s got
nuthin’ at all inside. He’s a liar an’ a fakir. He promised me a pair o’
boots! He’s a liar an’ a fakir! He’s—”
Simpson leaped on him. The three frightened Beauties jumped
screaming into the arms of the crowd. In another minute the whole
front of the “Alhambra” was shaking with the uproar of a riot.
 The blaze, caught at close range, seemed to snuff out
See page 90
“Shine” was a Bowery fighter. He turned in Simpson’s clutch and
threw him, and while the “boosters” were forcing their way to the
platform to aid their employer, he pounded Simpson in a fury. It was
impossible to separate him from his struggling victim, so they
dragged him from the platform, and Simpson with him; and then
some of the roughs in the crowd raised a cry of “Fair fight there! Fair
fight!” and attacked the boosters. In the midst of it a gang of Coney
thieves made a raid on the ticket office, and Mrs. Simpson’s wild yells
rose above the tumult in a shrill appeal for help.
There followed a free fight and a general scramble for the gate
receipts.
It lasted until the policeman on that beat called out the reserves to
clear the street; and when these turned their attention to the cause
of the disorder, a solitary gasoline torch, above the ballyhoo platform,
shone on the deserted wreck of the “Alhambra” front. The boosters
had made their escape by the back way. “Butts” had deserted his
piano, and was sitting in the New England Kitchen greedily inhaling
the smoke of a cigarette. The Beauties of the Harem were whispering
together in their dressing-room; and one of them had an air of
inward apprehension natural to a young woman who had swallowed
her chewing gum.
Mrs. Simpson was in the back room, bathing her husband’s face.
“Shine,” alone in the Hall of Mystic Marvels, dressed in his own
trousers and a coat and cap that belonged to “Butts,” received the
police with a battered grin.
“’S all right,” he said. “A gang o’ strong arms tried to rush the ticket
office. I guess they got away with ev’rythin’ but this.” He showed a
torn five-dollar bill. “The boss’s in the back.”
He pointed the way to them. When they came out again, with
another version of the trouble, he had disappeared.
 XXII

L
ATE that night he returned to the pierhouse of the Hudson limping,
with his arm in a sling, his face bruised and an eye blackened.
“Turk” Sturton, whose watch it was, received him without sympathy.
“Cap’n wants to see yuh,” he said sternly. “Where’ve yuh been?”
“Shine’s” face expressed all the bitterness of a soul that had found no
relief in its curses. “Wait!” he said. “Jus’ you wait!”
He went into Keighley’s office. The captain put aside a newspaper
that he had been reading, and looked him over. “Well?”
“Shine” moistened his lips and began his explanations. They were
guiltily ingenious. He had fallen down a hatch in the Leo and had lain
unconscious until the steamer was half way to Coney. Then some
deckmen in the forecastle had heard him groaning and had come to
his rescue. He had been badly shaken up but not seriously hurt, and
he had decided to hurry back to the Hudson by trolley instead of
waiting for the Leo to make her return trip. He borrowed some
clothes and went ashore, but as he was hastening up one of the
board walks towards the street-car line, he was stopped by a number
of men who were disputing about a cane which one of them had
“ringed with one o’ them rings that yuh toss at canes in a ‘Cane-yuh-
ring-is-the-cane-yuh-get’ graft.” And they had demanded that he
decide whether the cane had been “ringed” or not. The ring was
resting on the knob of the cane, being too small to fall down over it.
It was a “faked-up” dispute. They were a “gang o’ strong arms,” and
when they got him in among them, they started to “go through” him.
He put up a fight. They “got all over” him, knocked him down, gave
him a black eye, and took his money. He had had to walk back from
Coney. He—
“That’ll do,” Keighley cut in. “Take that sling off yer arm. Yuh can’t
come any spiels like that on me.”
“S’welp me, cap, I—”
“Cut it out, now, I tell yuh. Yuh’ve been drunk. Yuh’ve been off duty
ten hours without leave. Yuh’ve either got to gi’ me a straight story er
walk the carpet at Headquarters.”
“Shine” swallowed and looked down at his feet. He was calculating
that Acting-Chief Moran would be lenient with a “Jigger.”
“Yuh’ve been havin’ things pretty much yer own way around here,”
Keighley said. “This’s where yuh take a drop. The Commissioner’s
out, see? He quit this afternoon. Youse fullahs ’er goin’ to do what I
say after this. If yuh go up to Headquarters, yuh don’t come back.
Moran won’t save yuh. He’s got all he can do to save his own neck,
now.”
“Shine” looked at the captain, and recognized that his game was up.
“’Twasn’t my fault,” he said. “It was Doherty’s.”
“Doherty! What’d Doherty have to do with it?”
“The damn dip! He done me up,” he said—and plunged into an
incoherent and many-cursed account of what had happened.
Keighley heard him in silence. When Doherty’s part in the affair was
made plain, the captain “sized up” the situation with the frown of a
chess-player studying the board, and said “Ummm” as he saw his
play. “Shine” finished, humble and submissive. Keighley said, “Go to
yer bunk.”
It is the tradition of the department that a captain shall enforce
discipline in his company without sending his men to Headquarters
on every trifling charge that he has against them. Keighley watched
“Shine” out, snorted contemptously through his nose, reached for the
newspaper again, and returned to the column that reported the Fire
Commissioner’s resignation. He had “Shine” where he “wanted” him,
as he would have said. And he had his whole company in the hollow
of his hand.
“Shine” knew it. The “Jiggers” knew it. “It’ll be off to the goose-
pastures fer ours all right,” Cripps said, discussing the situation with
“Shine.” “The chief’ll get back, now, an’ if he don’t find a way to
break us, he’ll ship us off to the Bronx. I don’t care a damn anyway,”
he added in feeble defiance.
“Ner me!” “Shine” clenched his hand. “I’m lookin’ fer Doherty. If they
kick me out o’ the department, I’ll find him all the quicker. An’ I want
youse fullahs to keep yer eyes skinned fer him. Jus’ tell me where
he’s workin’. That’s all! I’ll do the rest.”
Cripps swore plaintively. “After us fightin’ ol’ Clinkers fer him, too.”
“An’ fer the rest o’ them,” “Shine” cried. “They’ve played us fer
suckers—Moran an’ the whole dirty gang. They’ve used us. An now
when they’re afraid o’ fallin’ down, they’ll chuck us. That’s all we’ll get
out o’ the ‘Jigger’ bus’ness. Yuh’ll see.” He wiped his mouth with the
back of his hand; he was almost “drooling” with disgust and
bitterness. “Never mind. If I ever get ahold o’ Doherty!” he promised
himself.
There is nothing persists among these men as an enmity does. A
man who has been wronged sees the scar of the injury as a mark of
inferiority on him, and his pride in himself is never satisfied until he
has been able to “get even,” until he has proved himself the equal of
his enemy by returning the hurt in kind. “Shine” could not even
consider his case in solitude without suffering. When he was among
companions, he could not think of Doherty without breaking out in
new threats of vengeance, as if he would give a sort of promissory
note against his debt of hatred. He asked everywhere for news of
Doherty. His first day off he spent in searching Coney, with his hands
clenched ready in his pockets. When he heard that Doherty had been
seen about the docks, he spent hours at the pierhouse windows
watching the river traffic, and took his weekly holiday lounging about
the water-front with the instinctive patience of a beast of prey. By the
time a month had passed, the desire of revenge had become a sort
of subconscious habit that affected his actions without disturbing his
thought. He went about his work as of old, but silently, as self-
contained as a man with a great ambition. He knew that if he could
wait long enough he could get his man. He was prepared to wait a
lifetime.
Then, one day, two things happened: Chief Borden came back to his
place in the department and “Shine” heard that Doherty had been
seen working as a freight-handler again on the Baltic-American
wharves. At meal hour “Shine” did not go to his dinner; he hurried
home to change his uniform, and posted off to the Baltic-American
sheds—and he was denied an entrance by the wharf watchman.
Since the fire on the Sachsen the rule had been strictly enforced that
no stranger should be admitted to the company’s piers without a card
from the office. “Shine” did not care to show the metal fire-badge on
his suspender; it was not a case for an official appearance. He
returned to the Hudson hungry but full of hope. He could wait for his
day off, waylay Doherty as the longshoremen left their work in the
evening, and mark him for all time.
As it turned out, he did not have to wait for his day off. He waited
only two days. On the third day the impossible happened.
An alarm of fire was rung in from the Baltic-American piers.
It found Chief Borden closeted with Captain Keighley when the call
came. Under the eye of the head of the department, the crew took
their places with an easy alertness and no confusion. The chief
followed them aboard; the lines were cast off; Keighley nodded an
order to the pilot; and the boat drew out into the stream with as little
show of haste as a fast express pulling out from a railway platform on
the tick of the appointed second.
The sullen glow of a sunset was smoldering dully over the Jersey
shore; and New York was piled up to face it, a Gibraltar of brick and
stone, twinkling with its lighted windows and gay with the blown
plumes of steam from its roofs. A stiff breeze from the north drove
the waves against the bow of the Hudson and hummed in the guys of
her funnel. Keighley and the Chief, facing the bow with their backs to
the wheelhouse, their chins sunken in their collars, were bent against
the rush of air like a pair of old and deaf cronies, their hands behind
them, their heads together as they talked.
“It was about a man named Doherty,” Keighley was explaining
reluctantly. “You remember him, I guess. Some o’ the men didn’t like
it when I got him broke. An’ they made a little trouble fer me—off an’
on.”
“He was a ‘Jigger,’ wasn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“How about that fire on the Sachsen? Didn’t Doherty figure in that?”
“Well, I saw him there. He was doin’ ’longshore-work on her. He
might’ve been in it. I don’t know.”
“Didn’t they stack the deal on you there?”
“I think they did. I don’t know. They got foolin’ with a pierhouse
blaze while I was down in her hold.... I tell yuh how it is, chief: it’s all
over. They’re attendin’ to bus’ness. Yuh needn’t be a-scared of any of
’em in this comp’ny.”
Keighley’s tone was apologetic and conciliatory. It seemed traitorously
so to the chief. “A-scared be damned!” he said. “I got to make them
a-scared of me. Who was at the head of the game here? Moore?”
Keighley answered, “The man that was at the head of it—he’s lef’ the
comp’ny.”
The chief darted a black look at Keighley under the peak of his cap.
“No one’s left this boat since that fire. I looked her up.”
“No,” Keighley admitted, unabashed. “But he’s left off makin trouble.”
“Now listen to me, Dan,” Borden broke out. “I’ve come back to the
department and I’m counting up my friends. Those that ain’t with me
are against me. That’s the way I look at it.... You know as well as I
do that if I don’t pound these men, they’ll think I’m afraid of them—
and they’ll get to work and knife me.”
“Well—that’s true, too,” Keighley reflected. He glanced up at the
Jersey shore and down at the deck again. “I wish yuh’d leave them
be, though, chief. I got the best crew in the department, now.”
The chief shook his head. “They didn’t leave me be. I can’t let up on
them. You know what they’d think.”
“Well,” Keighley said, looking out over the river, “I’ll tell yuh. The man
that was at the head of it—” He blinked the water from his eyes and
peered into the wind—“in this crew—” He raised his arm slowly and
pointed. “What’s that?”
Through the traffic of ferries, car-floats and lighters that crowded the
shore, he could see a big freighter drifting down the piers with a
flotilla of tugs about her. “What’s the matter? Is she afire?”
The chief watched her. “Looks like it, don’t she?”
There was no answer. He turned to see that Keighley had left him;
and he followed back to the wheelhouse, where he found the captain
standing at the pilot’s elbow with the glasses at his eyes.
“It’s a Baltic-American boat, all right—the Hessen,” Keighley said. “No
fire ashore. They pulled her out of her dock, I guess. I don’t see
much smoke on her. Lay us alongside, Tom.”
And the chief, mentally putting aside his feud with the “Jiggers” for
the time, said: “They’re keeping it under hatches. Gi’ me the
glasses.... It’s in one of her after holds.”
 XXIII

T HE Hessen had been loading with a miscellaneous cargo that

included everything from cotton to baby carriages and wild
animals. She had seven cargo holds, each four decks deep; and
when a smell of smoke was discovered in the depths of her fifth
hold, the wild animals were already stored on the ’tween decks of
that hold, with the baggage and the bunks for the keepers on the
decks below. To save the animals from being smothered in the
smoke, the hatch of the second deck had been covered with double
tarpaulins; live steam had been turned in on the smolder; an alarm
of fire had been sent out for the fire-boat; and the captain had
whistled for tugs to tow him out from the pier—for the fire that had
spread from the Sachsen to the wharves had taught the officers of
the line to isolate their burning boats.
When Keighley and his men came up their ladders to the main deck,
the first officer of the Hessen received them with a hurried
explanation of the situation, the frightened animals roaring a chorus
in accompaniment from below.
“Can’t you hoist out the cages and let us open up?” the chief asked,
when he arrived.
“No place to hoist them to,” Keighley said, “unless we put back to
the pier.”
“Well, if we only cut a hole in the hatch and pump her hold full of
water, you’ll lose all the cargo in the bottom, won’t you?”
The first officer stroked his brown, German beard. “T’e beasts ... are
... more costly.”
“There’s three barb’ry lions, he says,” Keighley explained rapidly, “an’
two trucks o’ nine trained leopards, an’ some big gorillas an’ half a
circus goin’ back to Hagen—what’s-his-name, in Hamburg. We’ll
have to flood her down without openin’ up. Smoke chokes them
brutes off like kittens.”
They stood beside the open hatch, in the fading light, and looked
down into the dark cargo room. They could see faintly the ends of
the box cages in which the animals were penned; and they could
hear, not faintly, the uproar of a panic-stricken menagerie frenzied
by the smell of fire. They could not see the deck below, though the
hatch that led to it was open. Keighley sniffed. “It’s sackin’.” He
turned to his men. “Get yer axes. Bring yer lamps. Couple up the six-
inch line.”
They turned back to the bulwarks, shoving aside the sailors. There
was the noise of a scuffle, the cry of an angry oath—and a man ran
across the deck and dodged behind the steam-winch that stood
beside the hatch. He was pursued by a helmeted fireman who came
cursing.
“Here!” Keighley caught the fireman by the shoulder as he passed.
“What’re yuh doin’.”
It was “Shine.” He cried, “That’s Doherty. That’s the damn bug that—
Nab ’m, Turk.” He struggled to get free of Keighley’s grip, swearing
like a street gamin. “Yuh double-crosser!” he yelled at Doherty. “Yuh
dirty back-capper! Let me at ’m.”
Keighley turned to Lieutenant Moore. “Bring that man here,” he said.
But Doherty did not wait to be surrounded. He leaped to the open
hatch, caught the rung of the iron ladder and swung down into the
hold.
“What’s he doing here?” the chief asked.
“He was loadin’,” someone answered.
“Haul him up out o’ that,” Keighley ordered.
“Shine” broke for the hatchway, with two of the men at his heels. He
was half way down the ladder when Doherty’s voice from below
threatened: “The first man ’at comes down here, I’ll let the cats
loose on him.”
“Go on,” Keighley said grimly. “Bring ’m up. We don’t want any more
Sachsen games played on us here.”
They went. But they did not go far. “Shine” had no more than
jumped down among the cages when a shrill squealing rose in the
hatch. A yell from “Shine” topped it with a startling note of fright;
and up the ladder, over the men on the rungs, there came a swarm
of monkeys, biting and fighting like rats as the men tried to beat
them off, and clinging to arms and legs, shrieking and chattering,
when the men, retreating, began to clamber up. They poured out,
gibbering, on the deck and put the crew to flight. Then they
scattered in all directions, up the derrick to the top-tackle, and up
the house-work to the higher decks. And when “Shine” came up the
ladder, with the last little marmoset hugging his neck, the main deck
was empty, the men were laughing shamefacedly on the bulwarks,
and Keighley was bellowing down to the Hudson for two lines of
small hose.
“All right,” he said. “We’ll queer that game.”
“Leave him alone,” the chief ordered. “Look after that fire.”
“That’s what we did on the Sachsen,” Keighley replied, “an’ we
ended up in a hole.” He added, in a swift aside: “All right, chief. I
want to show yuh somethin’. That’s Doherty—the man the ‘Jiggers’
tried to knife me fer. I’m goin’ to send after ’m the four jiggers that’s
left in the crew. I want yuh to see fer yerself about how much o’ the
Jigger bus’ness there is in my comp’ny. I’ll take the other men down
after the fire.”
The chief considered a moment, and let his silence give consent.
Keighley pushed back his helmet from his forehead and turned to his
men, his lips shut tight on a smile.
“Here, Moore,” he called to his lieutenant, “I’ll look after the fire
down there. I want you to take charge o’ that fullah Doherty an’ see
he don’t put up any games on us when we’re ’n under. Here you,” he
called to “Shine”, “an’ you,” to Cripps, “an’ you,” to another Jigger,
“go with the loot’nt. Better take a line er two, in case he lets any
more monkeys out on yuh. Get a move on now. Take yer lamps.
Come on, men. Hurry up with that six-inch line.”
The firemen carried their hose over to the hatch. When the lines
were coupled and stretched in, “Shine” said to Moore, “Le’ me go
ahead, will yuh?”
Moore understood that he was eager to wipe out the disgrace of his
first retreat. “Go on,” he said.
“Shine” slung the lantern over his arm, took the pipe across his
shoulder, and started down.
He was in the middle of the ladder when Doherty called out to him,
from the roaring darkness of the ’tween deck: “Go on down below
an’ atten’ to yer fire, now. If any o’ youse tries to come in on this
deck, I’ll turn the whole damn circus loose.”
“Shine” did not reply. He swung in to the deck and held up his
lantern. Two big gorillas were watching from separate cages on
either side of him, their teeth shining under curled lips, glaring at the
light. He put down his lantern and pointed the nozzle like a gun.
Doherty threatened, “Here goes!”
“Tell ’em to start the water,” “Shine” cried to Cripps who was behind
him. He heard Doherty knocking the pin out of a cage door, and he
backed into the ladder.
“Sick ’em,” Doherty yelled; and “Shine” knew, by the direction from
which the voice came, that Doherty was safe on top of a cage.
Then, down the passageway between the cages—in the dim halo
that lay outside the ring of light from the lantern—“Shine” saw a pair
of flaming eyeballs approaching him. He clutched the empty nozzle.
A black leopard crept up and crouched at the edge of the light, its
tail beating on the deck. Behind it he saw another. A third sneaked in
beside them.
“Start yer water!” he called huskily.
Doherty yelled, “Sick ’em!”
The leopards snarled. The nozzle shook in “Shine’s” hands. His jaw
had stuck, open-mouthed. He could not keep his eyes focused, and
he blinked desperately, going “blind” with fear. “Wa-a—”
The hose stiffened; the nozzle kicked up. With a cry between a
shout and a groan, he turned the shut-off valve and let loose a full
stream that struck the deck in front of the leopards and scattered
them as if it had been boiling water. He yelled, “Wh-rr-ah! Damn
yuh! Cripps! Crippsey!”—and slashed the water into the huddled
gorillas and stamped beside the lamp, bent double, like an Indian in
a fire dance, whooping.
A terrific uproar broke loose among the animals. “Shine” tugged on
the hose and dragged it in, drenching everything, cursing gloriously.
“Come out o’ that!” he yelled. “Yuh sneak thief!”
Suddenly the electric lights were switched on from the engine room,
and the place blazed up with incandescent lamps. The other Jiggers
of the squad joined him, carrying a second line. He staggered ahead
with his nozzle and turned the corner of a cage to see Doherty
flinging open a barred door to let loose a Barbary lion. As it jumped
down, “Shine” caught it behind with the water; and the powerful
stream turned it over, rolling on the deck. It scampered off with its
tail between its legs, like a wet pup.
“Wah!” he screamed, and took Doherty through the empty monkey
cage with a split spray that soaked him.
Doherty ducked and ran. “There he goes,” “Shine” shouted. “Keep ’m
off the ladder.”
That deck of the fifth hold was a room about forty feet wide and
thirty feet long; but the hatch in the center of it was at least twelve
feet square, so that the deck was little more than a gallery, as deep
as a stall, running around the open hatchway. As “Shine” drove
Doherty and the animals ahead, they had to circle around the hatch
to approach the ladder from the other side; and there Moore and the
fourth man had already turned the hose on some of the frightened
leopards—of which Doherty had released five—and driven them back
on him. And Doherty, finding himself between the two attacks,
penned in with the animals that retreated on him, ran to a corner
where there were several cages of polar bears, threw open the
doors of these, prodded the bears out with a pole, and hid himself
on top of the farthest cage.
Lions and leopards would run from water. Polar bears, he knew,
would not.
If “Shine” did not know, it was not long before he learned. He and
Cripps had come as far as their hose would allow them when the
first of the big white beasts, attracted by the splash of water, came
shouldering along the passageway with its mouth open, panting.
“Shine” raised a vainglorious whoop and put the hose on it. It rose
on its hind legs to take the water, and it went over on its back in a
deliciously cool bath, pawing at the stream that struck it rather too
heavily for play. It rolled over, fighting, and came to all fours with a
growl. The water struck into its eyes and into its open jaws; it
dodged blindly, biting less playfully; it began to wrestle and roll
about, fighting in on the stream.
“Gee!” he cried. “This is a garden hose to that brute. Here’s
another!”
He caught the second as it came, and toppled it over on the first. It
joined in the game. While he held one back, the other ran in under
the stream, and together they gained ground on him. When the
third suddenly loped up and presented its great bulk to the bath, he
began to shout for a bigger line, retreating as the bears worked in
on him. He was glancing back over his shoulder anxiously for aid,
when he saw a lion crouching in the passage behind him, dripping
wet, but of a ferocious aspect. He lost his voice. He swung his pipe,
gasping, at the newcomer and drove it back. He turned on the bears
again and caught them as they came in a body. He stopped two of
them, but he missed the third, and it rose with an angry growl
seemingly right over him and he dropped his pipe and fled with a
yell.
At that moment a strong stream, from the deck above, came
slantingly down through the hatch and checked the bear as it
pursued him.
 XXIV

D URING all this time, Chief Borden had been at the coaming of the
open hatchway, watching the “Jiggers” from the main deck; and,
when the electric lights had been turned on in the hold, he had been
able to enjoy “Shine’s” combat with the wild animals, from a gallery
seat. At first he had been merely an indifferent spectator, much
preoccupied with affairs of state in the department; but when he
saw the lion driven back among the cages like a doused cat, the
shouts of laughter from the men around him set him smiling under
his grey mustache. These men, under Keighley, were lowering the
big line down into the hold to attack the fire; and they amused
themselves by shouting encouragement to “Shine” as if they were
following a bull fight. The situation was the funnier because “Shine”
was unable to hear them—on account of the uproar around him—
and unable to see them because he was in the light and they in
darkness; and he whooped and danced about with his nozzle,
unconscious that he was playing the clown for their amusement.
“Give it to ’em,” they called. “Kick ’em in the slats. Ho-ho! This ’s
more fun ’an a circus!”
The chief—naturally a jovial man, with a bluff military manner—
enjoyed it as much as anybody. But when the bear appeared, they
all saw danger in the joke. “Here,” the chief cried. “He’ll never hold
that brute. Get a bigger line down to him. There comes another.
They’ll eat him up.”
Keighley and his men ran back to bring up a three-inch line, and the
chief remained laughing at the duel between “Shine” and the bears.
He shouted, “Back out, you fool!”
Moore and the fireman with him, who were just below where the
chief stood, heard the order and obeyed it. By so doing they left
“Shine” unprotected from an attack in the rear. When the third bear
appeared, the excitement became frantic; and the whole company,
from the chief down, pulled on the incoming hose and shouted and
laughed together.
The chief, at the nozzle, was the first to see the lion creeping around
the hatch. “Stop him!” he cried, to nobody in particular. “Damn it all!
Behind you, man,” he yelled to “Shine.” “Look behind you!”
“Shine” could not hear him. The chief took off his cap and threw it
down at the animal, vainly. He dropped on his hands and knees
beside the hatch, clutching the nozzle of the three-inch line,
bellowing hoarsely for water, half-choked with laughter. When
“Shine” caught sight of the lion and turned from the bears to drive it
back, the chief saw the bears closing in, and he hammered on the
iron coaming of the hatch with the nozzle, in an inarticulate
excitement. And then he got water just as “Shine” dropped his pipe
and ran; and he struggled with his kicking nozzle, the tears of
laughter running down his cheeks, unable to see the bears whom he
was trying to take in the flank with his stream so as to hold them
until “Shine” could make good his retreat.
Keighley had been working his men like an old slave-driver, glancing
back at the chief, every now and then, with a sly, dry smile. Now he
caught Borden’s pipe and steadied it. “All right, chief,” he said. “He’s
out. Here he comes.”
“Shine” climbed, panting, up the ladder. “Hold those brutes off us
now,” Keighley ordered. “We got to get down to that fire. Here
‘Shine’! You an’ Cripps take this pipe an’ keep those cats away from
the hatch.”
“Shine” came to the chief’s pipe, grinning at the remarks of the men.
“You’re as good as a circus,” Borden said, wiping his eyes.
“They scared the tripe out o’ me.”
 Keighley turned to his pipe. “I’m responsible for this boat”
See page 124
The chief gave place to him. Keighley ordered: “Down yuh go, now.”
Cripps and “Shine,” at one angle of the hatch, and Moore and his
pipeman, diagonally opposite, commanded the deck below with two
solid streams that drove the animals into shelter among the cages,
while Keighley and his squad, with axes and ladder straps, went
down to fasten their six-inch line and cut an opening for the pipe in
the hatch. The smoke blew up in a thick belch as the men stripped
off the tarpaulin. “That’ll keep Mr. Bear busy,” the chief said.
“Mr. Doherty, too,” “Shine” volunteered.
The chief looked at him. “Who’s this Doherty anyway?”
“Shine” kept his eyes on the pipe. “He’s the mut that got us all in
trouble the time o’ the fire on that other Dutch boat.”
“I thought the ‘Jiggers’ were at the bottom of that,” the chief said,
with a pretended innocence.
“They blamed it on us. They blamed ev’rythin’ on us—because some
o’ the fat heads higher up used th’ association in their damn con
games.”
The chief scowled at this reference to the conspiracy that had ousted
him. “You’re a ‘Jigger,’ are you?”
“That’s what I am,” “Shine” admitted, with bravado. “I’m a ‘Jigger’ all
right, but I ain’t a back-sticker, any more’n half the other fullahs I
know—an’ they didn’t ask us before they put up their deal with the
Commissioner, if yuh want to know.”
The chief’s dignity would not let him discuss such matters with a
man in the ranks. He said, “Shut off your nozzles there, now. You’re
putting too much water on that deck”—and walked away without
further remark.
“Shine” said, under his voice, to Cripps: “That’ll hold him fer a
while.”
Cripps replied, with a convincing oath, “It’s true, too.”
A hole had been cut in the hatch below, and a denser smoke rose
from it. There was nothing to do now but wait for the six-inch line to
drown out the smolder; and Cripps and “Shine” waited, standing
with their pipe.
“Watch that ladder,” “Shine” whispered. “Doherty’ll be tryin’ to make
his sneak while its thick up here.”
A moment later, he yelled suddenly: “Yah!” And dropping his pipe, he
ran to fling himself on Doherty as the ex-fireman leaped out of the
smoke. They rolled together on the deck.
“Hold that man,” the chief ordered, as the crew tore the fighting
“Shine” from his enemy. They lifted Doherty to his feet and backed
him against the winch. “The police’ll want him for interfering with
firemen in the discharge of their duties.” He turned to the four
“Jiggers.” “I want you men to appear in court against him,
understand?... That’ll do you,” he said to “Shine.” “Go back to your
place.”
“Shine” went back to his place, licking his lips, with a venomous grin.
The rest of the fire was merely an affair of “standing fast” while the
six-inch line flooded the hold; and in half an hour “the job” was
done. The German first officer and his men took charge of Doherty
and agreed to turn him over to the police as soon as their boat tied
up to the pier; and to them was left the work, too, of returning the
wild animals to their cages. The firemen were free to pick up their
lines and return to the Hudson, chaffing “Shine.”
“That’s all right,” he swaggered. “I’m a li’n-tamer, all right, all right.”
“Yuh’re not much on polar bears,” they told him.
He retorted delicately, “Yuh can’t train a brute that’s got no sense.
Polar bears are like youse guys. They’re holler in the cocoa.”
“It was you that did the hollerin’.”
“I was callin’ you fullahs on. I seen yuh was a-scared to come.”
“The hell yuh say! Conlin in the lion’s den. Y’ought to set up a show
down on Coney.”
“Shine” winced at that thrust. “Never mind,” he said, with a curse. “I
done fer Doherty!”
Cripps drew him aside. “Are yuh goin’ t’ appear against Doherty?”
“Well, am I!” he cried. “Watch me! I wish t’ell it was a murder case,
that’s all! An’ if you an’ Moore won’t stan’ by me, yuh can go—”
“That’s all right,” Cripps put in hastily. “We’ll stan’ by yuh, ‘Shine’.”
“Yuh better!” “Shine” said.
The other men kept discreetly silent, and the boat turned back for
the run down the river.
 XXV

“W ELL,” the chief said to Keighley, when they were alone again
in the bows, “I guess your company’s all right, Dan. If those
four men go into court against Doherty, it lets me out. I’ve got no
kick coming.” He smiled a satisfied slow smile. “Their association
isn’t as strong as it was, eh?”
Keighley passed a worried hand over his forehead. “Chief,” he said,
“I’ve had a good deal o’ trouble in the las’ two months, an’ I’ve been
doin’ a lot o’ thinkin’. An I want to tell yuh this: Here’s this fire
department as clean as anyone’d want it, an’ here’s ev’ry other
department in this town, between you an’ me, gettin’ rotten with
graft. Why don’t politics get a hold on us.” He leaned forward poking
out his forefinger. “’Cause politics can’t put out a fire, an’ a fire,
when it starts, has got to be put out, er the whole damn town goes
up. Yuh can’t fool with a fire.”
“Well?” the chief said.
“Well,” Keighley went on, “that’s where the ‘Jiggers’ fell down. An’ if
you’ve come back to the department to pound ‘Jiggers’ an’ knife the
men ’at knifed you, that’s where you’ll fall down. Don’t get on yer
ear, now. If this ain’t true, yuh needn’t mind it. An’ if it is true, yuh
can’t change it by gettin’ sore on me.”
“Go ahead,” the chief said. “Get it out of your system.”
Keighley nodded. “These ‘Jiggers’ here tried to stick me, instead of
attendin’ to their bus’ness—an’ they pretty near curled up their toes
in the bottom o’ the Sachsen. Moran tried to stick me at that lumber
yard blaze, an’ if it hadn’t been fer the way m’ own men stood by me
he’d’ve been burned out of his job. I attended to my work an’
treated ‘Jigger’ an’ anti-‘Jigger’ the same. An’ with Moran an the