s all right for the
rest o' his life. An' as for me as gave him his start, look at
me. Ain't I a sight? Here I am, forty-two years old an' only a
thousand dollars in my pocket. Instead of bein' master of a
clipper ship, I'm mate on a dirty little bumboat. I fall asleep
on deck an' dream an' somethin' drops on my face an' wakes me up.
Is it a breadfruit, Mac? It is not. It's a head of cabbage. I
grab something to throw at Scraggs's cat. Is it a ripe mango? No,
it's a artichoke. In fancy I go to split open a milk cocoanut.
What happens? I slash my thumb on a can o' condensed cream.
Instead o' th' Island trade, I'm runnin' in th' green-pea trade,
twenty miles of coast, freightin' garden truck! My Gawd!"

Mr. Gibney stood up and dusted the seat of his new suit. He was
dry after his long recital and Captain Scraggs was too long
putting in an appearance, so he decided not to wait for him.
"Let's go an' stow away a glass of beer," he suggested to
McGuffey. "I'm thirstier'n a camel."

McGuffey was willing so they left the bulkhead for the more
convivial shelter of the Bowhead saloon.

CHAPTER XV

Had either Gibney or McGuffey glanced back as they headed for
their haven of forgetfulness they might have seen Captain Scraggs
poking his fox face up over the edge of a tier of potato boxes
piled on the bulkhead not six feet from where Gibney and McGuffey
had been sitting. Upon his return to the _Maggie_, about the time
Mr. Gibney commenced spinning his yarn, he had almost walked into
the worthy pair, and, wishing to avoid the jeers and jibes he
felt impending, he had merely stepped aside and hidden behind the
potato boxes in order to eavesdrop on their plans, if possible.
Had Mr. Gibney been less interested in his past or Mr. McGuffey
less interested in the recital of that past they would have seen
Scraggs.

The owner of the _Maggie_ shook his fist in impotent rage at
their retreating backs. "You think you've suffered before," he
snarled. "But I'll make you suffer some more, you big brute. I'll
hurt you worse than if I caved in your head with a belayin' pin.
I'll break your heart, that's what I'll do to you. You wait."

In the course of an hour Gibney and McGuffey returned, and
Scraggs met them as they leaped down on to the deck of the
_Maggie_. "Gentlemen," he remarked--"an' at that I'm givin' you
two all the best of it, even if you two have got a quit-claim
deed that you ain't pirates--I wish to announce that if y