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“Mauretania?” asked Bell

“We love the Maury Gobbles coal like it’s going out of style, and you could set your watch by her: six thousand tons every teeks”

“Is La back to the Mauretania?”

“Nope, she’s full up Ought to be sailing just about now”

Bell nudged Eddie Tobin, and the two detectives ran out on the coaling pier, climbed the incline under the shadows of the dumper, and looked down “I don’t see no trimmer,” said Eddie

“What’s that in the corner?”

“Just some coal stuck there”

Bell ran to the steel ladder affixed to the girders

“Look out, you idiot!” yelled the workman who manipulated the levers that tipped the cars and aimed the dumper nozzle

“Tell him to wait,” Bell shouted

Eddie jumped to the controller’s shack “Hold on a sec”

“I got fifty barges waiting I’ for that fool”

Eddie opened his coat The operator saw the checkered grip of a So have a smoke”

Bell slid thirty feet down the ladder and landed on the pier beside the barge Eddie was right It was a heap of coal jae The breeze swooped down and blew grit Cloth shie and scattered coal with his hands The triarrote around his throat

“Mr Bell!”