"I'd grow to it, of course. I don't expect I could go down to the docks
an' get a chance right off as a first-class hand on masts an' sails; but
I shouldn't go on a vessel, you know, Plums. I'm countin' on a
steamboat, where there ain't any shinnin' round to be done. Them fellers
that run on the Sound steamers have snaps, that's what they have. You
know my stand was on West Street, where I saw them all, and the money
they spend! It don't seem like as if half a dollar was any account to
'em."

"But what could you do on a steamboat?"

"I don't know yet; but I'll snoop 'round before the summer's over, an'
find out. Where you livin' now?"

"Well, say, Joe, you can talk 'bout steamboat snaps; but this house of
mine lays over 'em all. I s'pose I've got about the swellest layout in
this city, an' don't have to give up a cent for it, either. First off
McDaniels counted on chargin' me rent, an' after I'd been there a couple
of days he said it didn't seem right to take money, 'cause the place
wasn't fit for a dog. I'll tell you what it is, if McDaniels keeps his
dogs in any better shanty than that, they must be livin' on the fat of
the land."

"Who's McDaniels?"

"He's the blacksmith what owns the shanty where I live. You see, it was
like this: I allers sold him a paper every afternoon, an' when it
rained, or business was dull, I loafed 'round there, an' that's how I
found the place."

"Do you live in the blacksmith's shop?"

"Well I should say I didn't! Right behind it is a shed he built, to keep
a wagon in, but I guess he ain't got any now, leastways he don't flash
one up. There was a lot of old iron an' the like of that thrown in at
one end, an' when I saw it, I says to myself, says I, 'That's a mighty
good shanty for some feller what don't want to give up all the money he
makes for a place to sleep in,' and I began to figger how it could be
fixed. It took me as much as two days before I could see into it, an'
then I had it all in my mind; so I tackled McDaniels about hirin' it. He
was willin', so long's I 'greed to be careful about fire, an'--well, if
you're out of business now there's nothin' to keep you from comin' down
to-night an' seein' it."

"I'm not only out of business, but I'm out of a home, Plums. You see,
when I sold the fruit-stand of course I hadn't any right to count on
sleepin' there, an'--"

"Didn't Sim Jepson offer you the chance?"

"He seemed to think it wasn't big enough for two."

"He didn't