Only a Page or So
- After their backroom deal, Mr. Roberts and Tassel chat.
- Looking back on the gamblers, Mr. Roberts wonders what other secret lives the ship holds. He's a curious guy.
- Mr. Roberts brings up a story of a dying miser he came across maybe an hour or so ago. The miser didn't want to let go of life due to his love of money and his fear of losing it by death or theft.
- Mr. Roberts wants to feel pity for this man; Tassel, not so much.
- Mr. Roberts then brings up Guinea and his difficult life, which is dependent on charity. Tassel counters again. This time it's with an offensive notion that black people just don't get sad or stay sad.
- Mr. Roberts, undaunted in his goal to demonstrate that pitying one's fellow human is a valid thing to do, references the man with the weed on his hat. Reminder: this is the dude that 1) told Mr. Roberts a sob-story about being a down-and-out fellow mason to get moolah; 2) weirded out the college kid; and 3) told Mr. Roberts about the company for which Tassel works.
- Apparently, Grey-and-white, the man collecting money for widows and orphans, told Mr. Roberts more about Weeds. We're going to need a Facebook group or yearbook or something to keep all these peeps straight.
- The narrator then throws some mad shade on Mr. Roberts when he lets us know that while Mr. Roberts can do right by Weeds, he can't really deliver on the story about Weeds. Harsh.