my boy, we're
goin' to get so rich that if he can't snare a sucker we'll put up the
cash ourselves 'n' buy a schooner for 'm, 'n' send him out a-treasure-
huntin' on his own. We'll be the suckers, eh, just you an' me, an' love
to."

* * * * *

The Barbary Coast of San Francisco, once the old-time sailor-town in the
days when San Francisco was reckoned the toughest port of the Seven Seas,
had evolved with the city until it depended for at least half of its
earnings on the slumming parties that visited it and spent liberally. It
was quite the custom, after dinner, for many of the better classes of
society, especially when entertaining curious Easterners, to spend an
hour or several in motoring from dance-hall to dance-hall and cheap
cabaret to cheap cabaret. In short, the "Coast" was as much a
sight-seeing place as was Chinatown and the Cliff House.

It was not long before Dag Daughtry was getting his twenty dollars a
night for two twenty-minute turns, and was declining more beer than a
dozen men with thirsts equal to his could have accommodated. Never had
he been so prosperous; nor can it be denied that Michael enjoyed it.
Enjoy it he did, but principally for Steward's sake. He was serving
Steward, and so to serve was his highest heart's desire.

In truth, Michael was the bread-winner for quite a family, each member of
which fared well. Kwaque blossomed out resplendent in russet-brown
shoes, a derby hat, and a gray suit with trousers immaculately creased.
Also, he became a devotee of the moving-picture shows, spending as much
as twenty and thirty cents a day and resolutely sitting out every
repetition of programme. Little time was required of him in caring for
Daughtry, for they had come to eating in restaurants. Not only had the
Ancient Mariner moved into a more expensive outside room at the Bronx;
but Daughtry insisted on thrusting upon him more spending money, so that,
on occasion, he could invite a likely acquaintance to the theatre or a
concert and bring him home in a taxi.

"We won't keep this up for ever, Killeny," Steward told Michael. "For
just as long as it takes the old gent to land another bunch of
gold-pouched, retriever-snouted treasure-hunters, and no longer. Then
it's hey for the ocean blue, my son, an' the roll of a good craft under
our feet, an' smash of wet on the deck, an' a spout now an' again of the
scuppers.

"We got to go rollin' down to Rio as well as sing about it to a lot of