"Too bad! Ought to have held some out. There'll be no money at
Philadelphia. Owner's kickin'. Wants to save the interest, and he won't
pay off till we get back."

Scotty's face assumed a rueful expression, and Captain Bolt watched it
from the tail of his eye; then, before Scotty could speak, the prolonged
clatter of the steward's dinner-bell began, and the captain moved
towards the companion, pocketing the coins as he went. One fell on the
deck, the noise of the bell preventing its fall being heard, and the
captain did not see it. But Scotty did, and he watched it roll back
towards the taffrail, assume a spiral motion, and lie down just aft of
the quarter-bitt. The captain was now down in the cabin, but Scotty
picked up the coin to hold for him until he came up. He should have let
it lie.

For it was bright and beautiful to look at, hard and slippery to the
touch as he held it in his trousers pocket, a pleasing contrast to the
coming emptiness of that pocket in Philadelphia. Scotty's soul went
through the usual conflict in such cases, and when Captain Bolt came up,
rubbing his mouth, love of Mammon had won over love of God, and he said
nothing about it. Shortly after, he was relieved, and he went forward.
On the way a revulsion set in, and he turned back, resolved to hand it
over, as though he had forgotten; but the captain had stepped below
again, and with the memory of his boasted honesty and the certainty of
the captain's skepticism and ridicule in his mind, he turned again and
went to the forecastle. When he had eaten his dinner, and slept four
hours, he found on waking that his inclination to return it was stronger
than at noon; but the certainty of being disbelieved had gained equally
in strength, and the dollar remained in his pocket--a source of guilty
joy and expectant misgiving. He longed for the day when it would be
spent and off his mind, and calculated the days and hours before the tow
would reach Philadelphia.

But Scotty did not reach Philadelphia; he fell overboard just within the
Delaware capes and though he bawled lustily as the black side of the
barge slipped by him in the darkness, and was answered in kind by his
watchmates above, the noise did not reach the relentless power eleven
hundred feet away, and he was left behind. But one had thrown him a
life-buoy, and on this he floated until daylight, when an outbound tug
picked him up. The tug was bound to Boston.

"I'll e'en make the best o' it,