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someone who spent a lot of time in the sunshine. His nose was narrow and aristocratic, his wavy hair brown. His eyes, brown too, were rather deeply set. Fatigue circles tended to appear under them whenever he slept poorly, as he had last night. The rings of shadow gave his face a melancholy cast. But he was not melancholy by disposition. His smile, which appeared frequently, proved that. He was, however, a deliberate sort. He tended to pause and think before taking any important step.
    Impatient, the stevedore put a foot on the trunk. “Lad I asked—”
    “I heard you, sir. I can handle the trunk myself.”
    “Listen to that,” one of the other stevedores jeered. “Where you from, country boy?” It was Orry’s accent that gave him away; his clothes were far from countrified.
    “South Carolina.”
    His heart was beating fast now. The three were mature men, muscular and rough. But he refused to be backed down. He reached for the rope handle. The first stevedore grabbed his wrist.
    “No you don’t. Either we put it on the steamer or you travel up to West Point without it.”
    Orry was stunned by the threat and equally stunned by the ease with which he and his destination had been identified. He needed time to think, time to put himself in a better position to deal with these louts. He shook his wrist to signal that he wanted the stevedore to release him. After a deliberate delay the man did. Orry straightened and used both hands to put his hat back on his head.
    Three female passengers, two pretty girls and an older woman, hurried by. They certainly couldn’t help him. Then a small man in a uniform stepped off the gangway, an official of the line, Orry suspected. A sharp wave from one of the stevedores and the official came no farther.
    “How much to load it?” Orry asked. Somewhere behind him wagon wheels squealed and hooves rang on the cobbles. He heard merry voices, laughter. Other passengers arriving.
    “Two dollars.”
    “That’s about eight times more than it should be.”
    The stevedore grinned. “Could be, sojerboy. But that’s the price.”
    “You don’t like it,” the second stevedore said, “go complain to the mayor. Go complain to Brother Jonathan.” All three laughed. Brother Jonathan was the popular symbol for the nation. A rustic, a Yankee.
    Orry was perspiring from tension as well as from the heat. He bent at the waist, again reaching for the trunk. “I refuse to pay you a—”
    The first stevedore pushed him. “Then the trunk stays here.”
    A grave look concealed Orry’s fear. “Sir, don’t put hands on me again.” The words provoked the stevedore to do exactly that. He tried to give Orry a clumsy shake. Orry had planned his point of attack and rammed his right fist into the stevedore’s stomach.
    The official cried, “Stop that,” and started forward. Another stevedore flung him back so hard he nearly pitched off the pier into the water.
    The first stevedore grabbed Orry’s ears and twisted. Then he kneed Orry’s groin. Orry reeled away, falling against someone who had come up behind him, someone who darted around him and charged the three stevedores, fists swinging.
    A young man not much older than himself, Orry saw as he lunged back to the fray. A shorter, very stocky chap who punched with great ferocity. Orry jumped in, bloodied a nose, and got his cheek raked by fingernails. Frontier-style fighting had reached the New York docks, it seemed.
    The first stevedore tried to jab a thumb in Orry’s eye. Before he hit his target, a long gold-knobbed cane came slashing in from the right. The knob whacked the stevedore’s forehead. He yelled and staggered.
    “Blackguards,” a man bellowed. “Where are the authorities?”
    “William, don’t excite yourself,” a woman exclaimed.
    The stocky young man jumped on Orry’s trunk, poised and ready to continue the fight. Now the official by the gangway was joined by two crewmen from the steamer. The stevedores backed off,