t it; "p'yed 'ansomely to sling my 'ook an' keep slingin' it."

I had brought the customary liquor glasses, but Wolf Larsen frowned,
shook his head, and signalled with his hands for me to bring the
tumblers. These he filled two-thirds full with undiluted whisky--"a
gentleman's drink?" quoth Thomas Mugridge,--and they clinked their
glasses to the glorious game of "Nap," lighted cigars, and fell to
shuffling and dealing the cards.

They played for money. They increased the amounts of the bets. They
drank whisky, they drank it neat, and I fetched more. I do not know
whether Wolf Larsen cheated or not,--a thing he was thoroughly capable of
doing,--but he won steadily. The cook made repeated journeys to his bunk
for money. Each time he performed the journey with greater swagger, but
he never brought more than a few dollars at a time. He grew maudlin,
familiar, could hardly see the cards or sit upright. As a preliminary to
another journey to his bunk, he hooked Wolf Larsen's buttonhole with a
greasy forefinger and vacuously proclaimed and reiterated, "I got money,
I got money, I tell yer, an' I'm a gentleman's son."

Wolf Larsen was unaffected by the drink, yet he drank glass for glass,
and if anything his glasses were fuller. There was no change in him. He
did not appear even amused at the other's antics.

In the end, with loud protestations that he could lose like a gentleman,
the cook's last money was staked on the game--and lost. Whereupon he
leaned his head on his hands and wept. Wolf Larsen looked curiously at
him, as though about to probe and vivisect him, then changed his mind, as
from the foregone conclusion that there was nothing there to probe.

"Hump," he said to me, elaborately polite, "kindly take Mr. Mugridge's
arm and help him up on deck. He is not feeling very well."

"And tell Johnson to douse him with a few buckets of salt water," he
added, in a lower tone for my ear alone.

I left Mr. Mugridge on deck, in the hands of a couple of grinning sailors
who had been told off for the purpose. Mr. Mugridge was sleepily
spluttering that he was a gentleman's son. But as I descended the
companion stairs to clear the table I heard him shriek as the first
bucket of water struck him.

Wolf Larsen was counting his winnings.

"One hundred and eighty-five dollars even," he said aloud. "Just as I
thought. The beggar came aboard without a cent."

"And what you have won is mine, sir," I said boldly.