old her I was old enough to be her
grandfather and that I wouldn't take gammon from a chit like her. And
then I ordered her off the _Flibberty_. 'Captain Oleson,' she says,
sweet as you please, 'I've a few minutes to spare on you, and I've got
some good whisky over on the _Emily_. Come on along. Besides, I want
your advice about this wrecking business. Everybody says you're a
crackerjack sailor-man'--that's what she said, 'crackerjack.' And I
went, in her whale-boat, Adamu Adam steering and looking as solemn as a
funeral.

"On the way she told me about the _Martha_, and how she'd bought her, and
was going to float her. She said she'd chartered the _Emily_, and was
sailing as soon as I could get the _Flibberty_ underway. It struck me
that her gammon was reasonable enough, and I agreed to pull out for
Berande right O, and get your orders to go along to Poonga-Poonga. But
she said there wasn't a second to be lost by any such foolishness, and
that I was to sail direct for Poonga-Poonga, and that if I couldn't take
her word that she was your partner, she'd get along without me and the
_Flibberty_. And right there's where she fooled me.

"Down in the _Emily's_ cabin was them three soaks--you know them--Fowler
and Curtis and that Brahms chap. 'Have a drink,' says she. I thought
they looked surprised when she unlocked the whisky locker and sent a
nigger for the glasses and water-monkey. But she must have tipped them
off unbeknownst to me, and they knew just what to do. 'Excuse me,' she
says, 'I'm going on deck a minute.' Now that minute was half an hour. I
hadn't had a drink in ten days. I'm an old man and the fever has
weakened me. Then I took it on an empty stomach, too, and there was them
three soaks setting me an example, they arguing for me to take the
_Flibberty_ to Poonga-Poonga, an' me pointing out my duty to the
contrary. The trouble was, all the arguments were pointed with drinks,
and me not being a drinking man, so to say, and weak from fever . . .

"Well, anyway, at the end of the half-hour down she came again and took a
good squint at me. 'That'll do nicely,' I remember her saying; and with
that she took the whisky bottles and hove them overside through the
companionway. 'That's the last, she said to the three soaks, 'till the
_Martha_ floats and you're back in Guvutu. It'll be a long time between
drinks.' And then she laughed.

"She looked at me and said--not to me, mind you, but to the s