The men
endured it in net undershirts clinging to dripping bodies; their eyes
ached against the glare, their stomachs rebelled, their brains sickened
with monotony and despair.
The men developed little personal traits that exasperated their mates
unreasonably. Mulcher had a way of breathing aloud through his coarse
lips that chafed Hogan's temper. For hours at a time the Irishman would
stare at those flabby spewing lips, filled with a desire to maul them.
Yet before this isolation, he had never observed that Mulcher breathed
aloud.
The only occupation the men had now was to stare at, listen to and
criticise each other. All painting had ceased, for work consumes energy,
and energy consumes food.
Caradoc Smith found peculiar and private grievance in the fact that
Greer often whistled to himself in a windy undertone. The tune Farnol
chose for these unfortunate performances was an American ragtime, that
repeated the same strain over and over.
Caradoc strove not to listen to this dry whistling. Sometimes he left
his awning and climbed up the walls through the sapping sun's rays to
escape it, but his ears caught the faintly aspirated air at remarkable
distances.
One day he said to Madden: "I don't see how you stand that Greer
fellow's eternal whistling," and Leonard answered:
"Does Greer whistle?"
"Whistle! He whistles everlastingly, abominably--one of those confounded
American rags.
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