“Pretty drunk, too,” Drew added, and then, with a reproving look: “And it was only nine in the morning.”

“Tall, skinny nigger drunk at nine de mornin’? Dot be Desmond Knowles, and no other. Used to work with me till he get so deep into de rum dot he seein’ sponges in his bed, but take him to de sponges’ beds and he seein’ everything but sponges.” Lowe glared balefully at the crewman on the dock. “What you starin’ at, Corey?”

“Wasn’t starin’, Papa. Was listenin’,” said Corey, in the accents of the American South, rather than in Artemis’s West Indian.

“Well, stop lissnin’ and empty dem baskets, so’s Sweeting can see what we got. He ain’t gwan to buy what he can’t see.” Turning back to the Braithwaites: “Dis my youngest, Corey. Other two down de hold, and de two on deck be my nephews. Family business I got. We do the introducin’ when dey done workin’. Goddom! Never thought I’d be meetin’ Cop’in Cy’s sons, de second batch. Knew de first, Lockwood. Wasn’t but a boy when I last seen him, but a sailin’ mon even den. First rate. Now how’s he farin’? Must have him a wife and kids by now.”

Shaking his head, Nathaniel answered that Lockwood was still single, and had himself tried to make a go of the sponge business in Tampa, but had gone broke.

“He did? Dot too bad. Wished he’d talked to me first. I’d of told him, Stay out de sponge business, ‘less you be Greek.” Artemis pulled off his hat, revealing a coffee-colored skull banded above his brows by a crease and above the ears by a ribbon of knotty hair dusted with white. “Goddom Greek foreign son-bitches, dey takin’ it all!” he said, slapping the hat against his thigh. “Dey come to here from Tarpon Springs all de way and dey don’t fish de sponges like we do, with a glass-bottom bucket and dese …” He reached into the boat and took up a long-handled hook with three prongs. “Nope. Dey dives for ’em in divin’ suits, and dey go through a sponge bed like de locust in Egypt in de Bible times. And what dem foreign son-bitches don’t take, dey kill, stompin’ on de sponges with dem goddom heavy divin’ boots. Yeah, I’m sorry Lockwood don’t talk to me first. I’d of put him straight. I always liked dot boy. A sailorin’ mon. First rate.” He jammed the hat back on his head and glared again at his son Corey. “I see you lissnin’ again instead of workin’.”

“Who are these fellas, Papa?”