glasses we had been drinking. Yet the charge
was the same--five cents.

By this time I was getting nicely jingled, so such extravagance didn't
hurt me much. Besides, I was learning. There was more in this buying of
drinks than mere quantity. I got my finger on it. There was a stage
when the beer didn't count at all, but just the spirit of comradeship of
drinking together. And, ha!--another thing! I, too, could call for small
beers and minimise by two-thirds the detestable freightage with which
comradeship burdened one.

"I had to go aboard to get some money," I remarked casually, as we drank,
in the hope Nelson would take it as an explanation of why I had let him
treat six consecutive times.

"Oh, well, you didn't have to do that," he answered. "Johnny'll trust a
fellow like you--won't you, Johnny!"

"Sure," Johnny agreed, with a smile.

"How much you got down against me?" Nelson queried.

Johnny pulled out the book he kept behind the bar, found Nelson's page,
and added up the account of several dollars. At once I became possessed
with a desire to have a page in that book. Almost it seemed the final
badge of manhood.

After a couple more drinks, for which I insisted on paying, Nelson
decided to go. We parted true comradely, and I wandered down the wharf
to the Razzle Dazzle. Spider was just building the fire for supper.

"Where'd you get it?" he grinned up at me through the open companion.

"Oh, I've been with Nelson," I said carelessly, trying to hide my pride.

Then an idea came to me. Here was another one of them. Now that I had
achieved my concept, I might as well practise it thoroughly. "Come on,"
I said, "up to Johnny's and have a drink."

Going up the wharf, we met Clam coming down. Clam was Nelson's partner,
and he was a fine, brave, handsome, moustached man of thirty--everything,
in short, that his nickname did not connote. "Come on," I said, "and
have a drink." He came. As we turned into the Last Chance, there was
Pat, the Queen's brother, coming out.

"What's your hurry?" I greeted him. "We're having a drink. Come on
along." "I've just had one," he demurred. "What of it?--we're having one
now," I retorted. And Pat consented to join us, and I melted my way into
his good graces with a couple of glasses of beer. Oh! I was learning
things that afternoon about John Barleycorn. There was more in him than
the bad taste when you swallowed him. Here, at the absurd cost of ten
cen