Hello, Peter! Did you catch that big squall an hour
after you left us? We had to let go the second anchor."

While he was being introduced to Deacon, McMurtrey dispatched a
house-boy with the pants, and when Captain Donovan came in it was as a
white man should--at least in Goboto.

Deacon lost the second game, and an outburst heralded the fact. Peter
Gee devoted himself to lighting a cigarette and keeping quiet.

"What?--are you quitting because you're ahead?" Deacon demanded.

Grief raised his eyebrows questioningly to McMurtrey, who frowned back
his own disgust.

"It's the rubber," Peter Gee answered.

"It takes three games to make a rubber. It's my deal. Come on!"

Peter Gee acquiesced, and the third game was on.

"Young whelp--he needs a lacing," McMurtrey muttered to Grief. "Come on,
let us quit, you chaps. I want to keep an eye on him. If he goes too far
I'll throw him out on the beach, company instructions or no."

"Who is he?" Grief queried.

"A left-over from last steamer. Company's orders to treat him nice. He's
looking to invest in a plantation. Has a ten-thousand-pound letter of
credit with the company. He's got 'all-white Australia' on the brain.
Thinks because his skin is white and because his father was once
Attorney-General of the Commonwealth that he can be a cur. That's why
he's picking on Peter, and you know Peter's the last man in the world
to make trouble or incur trouble. Damn the company. I didn't engage
to wet-nurse its infants with bank accounts. Come on, fill your glass,
Grief. The man's a blighter, a blithering blighter."

"Maybe he's only young," Grief suggested.

"He can't contain his drink--that's clear." The manager glared his
disgust and wrath. "If he raises a hand to Peter, so help me, I'll give
him a licking myself, the little overgrown cad!"

The pearl-buyer pulled the pegs out of the cribbage board on which he
was scoring and sat back. He had won the third game. He glanced across
to Eddy Little, saying:

"I'm ready for the bridge, now."

"I wouldn't be a quitter," Deacon snarled.

"Oh, really, I'm tired of the game," Peter Gee assured him with his
habitual quietness.

"Come on and be game," Deacon bullied. "One more. You can't take my
money that way. I'm out fifteen pounds. Double or quits."

McMurtrey was about to interpose, but Grief restrained him with his
eyes.

"If it positively is the last, all right," said Peter Gee, gathering up
the cards. "It's my deal