s he, gettin' his eye on the contents. "Come aboard, then.
Here, I guess you can stow that stuff in there," and blamed if he don't
shove out an empty lard pail for me to dump the money in. That's as
excited as he gets about it too.

Say, I'd have indulged in about two more minutes of dialogue with that
ugly faced old pirate, and then I'd beat it for shore good and disgusted,
if it hadn't been for Chunk Tracey. But he jumps in, as enthusiastic as
if he was interviewin' some foreign Prince, presses a twenty-five-cent
perfecto on the Cap'n, and begins pumpin' out of him the story of his
life.

And when Chunk really enthuses it's got to be a mighty cold proposition
that don't thaw some. Ten to one, too, if this had been a nice, easy
talkin', gentle old party, willin' to tell all he knew in the first five
minutes, Chunk wouldn't have bothered with him; but, because he don't
show any gratitude, mushy or otherwise, and acts like he had a permanent,
ingrowin' grouch, Chunk is right there with the persistence. He drags out
of him that he's Cap'n Todd Spiller, hailin' originally from Castine,
Maine, and that the name of his old tub is the Queen of the Seas. He says
his chief business is clammin'; but he does a little fishin' and
freightin' on the side. He don't work much, though, because it don't take
a lot to keep him.

"But you have a wife somewhere ashore, I suppose," suggests Chunk, "a
dear old soul who waits anxiously for you to come back?"

"Bah!" grunts Cap'n Spiller, knockin' the heel out of his corncob
vicious. "I ain't got any use for women."

"I see," says Chunk, gazin' up sentimental at the moon. "A blighted
romance of youth; some fair, fickle maid who fled with another and left
you alone?"

"No such luck," says Spiller. "My trouble was havin' too many to once.
Drat 'em!"

And you'd most thought Chunk would have let it go at that; but not him!
He only tackles Spiller along another line. "What I want to know,
Captain," says he, "is where you learned to play the accordion so well."

"Never learned 'tall," growls Spiller. "Just picked it up from a Portugee
that tried to knife me afterwards."

"You don't say!" says Chunk. "But there's the musician's soul in you. You
love it, don't you? You use it to express your deep, unsatisfied
longings?"

"Guess so," says the Captain. "I allus plays most when my dyspepshy is
worst. It's kind of a relief."

"Um-m-m--ah!" says Chunk. "Many geniuses are that way. You must co