" Old Noble raised his head sharply and peered at him. "Ye ain't
been an' got religion, Dan?"

"No, I haven't," answered Goodwin. "But say, Jim, I went into the
place, and there was a girl there. She come over to loan me a
hymn-book first of all, an' afterwards what ye laughin' at, blast
ye?"

Old Noble had uttered no sound, but he had bent his head over his
sewing and his broad shoulders were shaking. He lifted a face of
elderly, cynical mirth.

"It ain't nothin', Dan," he protested. "It's just me thinkin' first
ye'd bin robbed and then ye'd got religion; an' all the time it's
just a girl ye've seen. Go on, Dan; how much did she get out of ye?"

"Stow that!" warned Goodwin. "She wasn't that kind. This one was say,
Jim, if you was to see her just once, you'd know things ashore ain't
all as bad as you fancy. Sort of soft, she was all tender and gentle
and shining! Gosh, there ain't no words to put her in. I didn't know
there was any girls like that."

"Nor me," put in old Noble dryly. He inspected Goodwin with a shrewd
and suspicious eye. For him, a citizen of the womanless seas, beauty,
grace, femininity were no more than a merchandise. "Then, to put it
straight, she didn't get yer money from ye?" he demanded.

"No, she didn't," retorted Goodwin. "Not a cent, is that plain
enough? Ain't you ever known no women but the rotten ones, man?"

Noble shook his head.

"Then you don't know what you're talkin' about," said Goodwin. "This
one it ain't no use tellin' you, Jim. I seen her, that's all; an' I'm
goin' to quit. This sailorizin' game ain't the only game there is,
an' I'm done with it."

"Ah!" The old man sat with both gnarled and labor-stained hands lying
upon the unfinished work in his lap. The cynical, half-humorous
expression faded from his thin, strong face. He frowned at the
younger man consideringly, seriously.

"Then she did get something out o' ye," he said harshly. "You're
talkin' like a fool, Dan. This old ship ain't no soft berth, I know;
but then, you ain't no quitter, either. This girl's got ye goin'; ye
want to watch out."

"Quitter!" Goodwin took him up hotly. They faced each other across
the narrow fo'c'sle vehemently; their shadows sprawled on deck and
bulkhead as they bent forward and drew back in the stress of talk.
"When a man's shanghaied aboard a blasted hooker like this, with
three months of his wages stolen before he gets the knockout drops
out o' his head, is he a quitter when he t