, "for a taste of local
ginger."

"Ginger?" inquired Nivin.

"Some kind of tropic spice."

"Spice?"

"I didn't come all this way," explained Tunstal, "to waste my
opportunities with a lot of fat koopmans who talk of nothing but
calicoes and the rate of exchange. I'm a humble seeker after truth,
right enough, but I want it fresh and snappy. I've got the price and,
believe me, chief, I've got the appetite.... What port is this?"

Nivin told him. The name does not matter. It might have been one or
another about that coast. It meant little to Tunstal beyond the fact
that they would lie there till midnight.

"And plenty long enough, by the looks. I'll just collect three thrills
and a shock and be back for tiffin. All I want from you, chief, is the
wise tip. Tell me, chief, tell me. Is there anything--you know--anything
specially worth seeing hereabouts?"

Thus spake and thus queried Alfred Poynter Tunstal, and Nivin examined
the figure he made there under the dawn. Quite a pleasing figure. His
suit of cream-colored silk fitted sleekly upon his well-fed person and
his tie was a dainty scrap. He carried a dove-gray sun helmet with not
more than three yards of bright peacock puggree. His buckskin shoes were
fleckless. Also he wore a smile, which requires to be noted. It began in
dimples and circled chubbily. A captious eye might have marked it as
somewhat lacking--somewhat too round and ready, like the ripple on a pan
of water. But it was brisk, forward, and perfectly assured.

"Anything worth seeing?" repeated Nivin, considering that smile.

The mate had sailed with globe-trotters before, though possibly with
none quite duplicating Mr. Tunstal. This man Nivin was one of a type not
so rare in outlying lanes and obscure corners as might be thought, into
which something of the sun and the air of warm seas has penetrated. A
bit of a dreamer, perhaps, mellowed by service under softer skies, among
softer races. To such an officer any passenger is apt to become an
object of real concern, aside from the strictly professional value
thereof. He had overheard Mr. Tunstal's hectic memoirs in the smoking
room and simply, laboriously, he went about to convey a certain
warning....

"I should hardly think so--for a gentleman of your experience. The fact
is, sir, you're off the traveled track here, so to speak. A town like
this has no use for tourists and provides no class to fatten off the
likes. Music, dances--all the giddy frol