After dinner Burney walked thirty yards down the river bank away from the maddening smell of the others' pipes.He sat down upon a stone.He was thinking he would set out for the Bronx.At least he could earn tobacco there.What if the books did say he owed Corrigan? Any man's work was worth his keep.But then he hated to go without getting even with the hard-hearted screw who had put his pipe out.Was there any way to do it?
Softly stepping among the clods came Tony, he of the race of Goths, who worked in the kitchen.He grinned at Burney's elbow, and that unhappy man, full of race animosity and holding urbanity in contempt, growled at him: "What d'ye want, ye -- Dago?"Tony also contained a grievance -- and a plot.He, too, was a Corrigan hater, and had been primed to see it in others.
"How you like-a Mr.Corrigan?" he asked."You think-a him a nice-a man?""To hell with 'm," he said."May his liver turn to water, and the bones of him crack in the cold of his heart.May dog fennel grow upon his ancestors' graves, and the grandsons of his children be born without eyes.May whiskey turn to clabber in his mouth, and every time he sneezes may he blister the soles of his feet.And the smoke of his pipe -- may it make his eyes water, and the drops fall on the grass that his cows eat and poison the butter that he spreads on his bread."Though Tony remained a stranger to the beauties of this imagery, he gathered from it the conviction that it was sufficiently anti-Corrigan in its tendency.So, with the confidence of a fellow-conspirator, he sat by Burney upon the stone and unfolded his plot.
It was very simple in design.Every day after dinner it was Corrigan's habit to sleep for an hour in his bunk.At such times it was the duty of the cook and his helper, Tony, to leave the boat so that no noise might disturb the autocrat.The cook always spent this hour in walking exercise.Tony's plan was this: After Corrigan should be asleep he (Tony)and Burney would cut the mooring ropes that held the boat to the shore.