He had hated
the smug, self-satisfied merchants of Grand Avenue. He had
writhed in torture at the sight of every shiny, purring automobile
that had ever passed him with its load of well-groomed
men and women. A clean, stiff collar was to Billy as a red
rag to a bull. Cleanliness, success, opulence, decency, spelled
but one thing to Billy--physical weakness; and he hated
physical weakness. His idea of indicating strength and manliness
lay in displaying as much of brutality and uncouthness
as possible. To assist a woman over a mud hole would have
seemed to Billy an acknowledgement of pusillanimity--to
stick out his foot and trip her so that she sprawled full
length in it, the hall mark of bluff manliness. And so he
hated, with all the strength of a strong nature, the immaculate,
courteous, well-bred man who paced the deck each day smoking
a fragrant cigar after his meals.
Inwardly he wondered what the dude was doing on board
such a vessel as the Halfmoon, and marveled that so weak
a thing dared venture among real men. Billy's contempt
caused him to notice the passenger more than he would have
been ready to admit. He saw that the man's face was handsome,
but there was an unpleasant shiftiness to his brown
eyes; and then, entirely outside of his former reasons for
hating him, Billy came to loathe him intuitively, as one who
was not to be trusted.
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