nine in the morning
If you make any friends I want to know them . Remember that whatever comes , thy people shall be mine , my dear . '' * * * * * The next day the strike began . Out of the docks at nine in the morning I saw dockers pour in crowds . They moved on to other docks , merged themselves in other crowds , scattered here and gathered there , until at last a black tide of men , here straggling wide , here densely massed , moved slowly along the waterfront . In and out of these surging throngs I moved , so close that in the quiver of muscles , the excited movements of big limbs , the rough eagerness of voices that spoke in a babel of many tongues , such a storm of emotions beat in upon me that I felt I had suddenly dived into an ocean of human beings , each one of whom was as human as I. I caught a glimpse of Joe hurrying by . And I thought of Sue , and of Joe 's appeal to her and to me to throw in our lives with such strangers as these whose coarse heavy faces were pressing so close .