ready to your hand."

"I believe you want service out of me in return, sir," said Kettle
stiffly.

Sheriff laughed. "You aren't the handiest man in the world to get on
with, and if I hadn't been an easy-tempered chap I should have bidden
you go to the deuce long enough ago. Of course, I want something out of
you. A man who has just lost a fortune, and who is down on his luck like
I am, can't afford to go in for pure philanthropy without any possible
return. But, at the same time, I'm finding you a job at fifty pound a
month with a fortnight's wages paid in advance, and I think you might be
decently grateful. By your own telling, you never earned so much as four
sovereigns a week before."

"The wages were quite to my taste from the beginning, sir; don't think
me ungrateful there. But what I didn't like was going to sea without
knowing beforehand what I was expected to do. I didn't like it at first,
and I refused the job then; and if I take it now, being, as you say,
cornered, you're not to understand that it's grown any the tastier
to me."

"We shouldn't pay a skipper a big figure like that," said Sheriff drily,
"if we didn't want something a bit more than, the ordinary out of him.
You may take it you are getting fifteen pounds a month as standard pay,
and the extra thirty-five for condescending to sail with sealed orders.
But what I told you at first I repeat now: I've got a partner standing
in with me over this business, and as he insists on the whole thing
being kept absolutely dark till we're away at sea, I've no choice but to
observe the conditions of partnership."

Some thirty minutes later than this, Mr. Sheriff got out of his
'rickshaw on the Marina and went into an office and inquired for Mr.
White. One of the colored clerks (who, to do credit to his English
education, affected to be utterly prostrated by the heat) replied with
languor that Mr. White was upstairs; upon which Sheriff, mopping himself
with a handkerchief, went up briskly.

White, a gorgeously handsome young Hebrew, read success from his face at
once. "I can see you've hooked your man," said he. "That's good
business; we couldn't have got another as good anywhere. Have a
cocktail?"

"Don't mind if I do. It's been tough work persuading him. He's such a
suspicious, conscientious little beggar. Shout for your boy to bring the
cocktail, and when we're alone, I'll tell you about it."

"I'll fix up your drink myself, old man. Where's the swizzl