Beta Book

A
motley troupe were the cattlemen--Jews with small trunks,
large imitation-leather valises and assorted bundles, a stolid
prophet-bearded procession of weary men in tattered derbies and
sweat-shop clothes.
There were Englishmen with rope-bound pine chests. A
lewd-mouthed American named Tim, who said he was a hatter out of
work, and a loud-talking tough called Pete mingled with a
straggle of hoboes.
The boss counted the group and selected his confidants for the
trip to Portland--Mr. Wrenn and a youth named Morton.
Morton was a square heavy-fleshed young man with stubby hands,
who, up to his eyes, was stolid and solid as a granite monument,
but merry of eye and hinting friendliness in his tousled
soft-brown hair. He was always wielding a pipe and artfully
blowing smoke through his nostrils.
Mr. Wrenn and he smiled at each other searchingly as the
Portland boat pulled out, and a wind swept straight from the
Land of Elsewhere.
After dinner Morton, smoking a pipe shaped somewhat like a
golf-stick head and somewhat like a toad, at the rail of the
steamer, turned to Mr.


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