A devil of a fellow, and The yellow cat — Story, Setting & Ideas

A Return and a Reckoning

The opening pages of 'A Devil of a Fellow' establish Va Di through specific, concrete details: his mustache 'breaking the line of either cheek, like a brigand on a poster,' his inability to read or write (his letter home was sent by Peter), and his casual dismissal of a shop-girl. Steele’s prose is economical but vivid, using physical description to imply character. The pair’s arrival at Schlinsky’s is interrupted by a man who 'seemed to be looking at ghosts,' hinting at past events that will shape the story. The reader is left to wonder what happened during the seven months Va Di and Peter were presumed dead.

A Logbook’s Uneasy Testimony

In 'The Yellow Cat,' the narrative shifts to a frame story. The narrator Ridgeway visits his friend McCord, who has discovered a personal logbook under a mattress aboard a ship. The log’s author, a captain with a 'huge square beard' and 'small squinting eyes,' writes with obsessive hatred of a Chinese cook. Steele uses the log entries to reveal character indirectly: the captain’s fear that the cook 'could have stuck a knife into me easy' and his admission that he 'fetched him a tap on the ear' expose a man unraveling. McCord’s commentary—'a clear case of moral funk'—offers one interpretation, but the log’s raw voice carries its own weight.

Voice and Unreliability

Steele employs distinct narrative voices in each story. In 'A Devil of a Fellow,' the third-person narrator stays close to Va Di’s perspective, adopting his swaggering tone: 'Here’s the country fer you, eh, Peter?' The dialogue is peppered with 'Betcha!' and casual bravado. In 'The Yellow Cat,' the frame narrator Ridgeway is more analytical, while the log entries are written in a rough, unpolished style—'Anything can happen to a man at sea, even a funeral'—that contrasts with the educated speech of the frame. This layering of voices creates ambiguity: whose version of events is trustworthy?

Setting as Psychological Mirror

Both stories use setting to reflect inner states. The Boston dock in 'A Devil of a Fellow' is described with sensory detail: 'the venders of colored fruits, the hot blue Elevated trains thundering overhead, the ice-carts sweating long, cold threads.' This urban heat contrasts with the tropical origins of Va Di’s flannels. In 'The Yellow Cat,' the confined quarters of the ship—the 'state-room,' the 'cubby-hole' where the captain writes—mirror the claustrophobic obsession of the log’s author. The chromo tacked on the wall and the 'jumping shadow' of McCord pacing add to the atmosphere of unease.

These excerpts offer a glimpse into Steele’s craft: his ability to build character through gesture and detail, his use of multiple narrative frames, and his skill at creating tension through setting. Readers approaching the full collection will find two stories that reward attention to voice and implication. The incomplete excerpts leave key questions unanswered—what happened in Old Harbor? What became of the Chinese cook?—but the writing itself provides a rich starting point for interpretation.

Steele’s sailors, with their tangled loyalties and quiet dread, always leave me feeling the weight of untold stories—the spaces between what men say and what they carry. That same ache surfaced when I later opened Negro Tales — Background and Themes, where the voices feel just as close, just as burdened by history’s weather.