No! You
can't think . . ."
"Got your money all right?" inquired his seedy acquaintance suddenly.
"Yes. Paid me off on board," raged the second mate. "'Get your breakfast
on shore,' says he."
"Mean skunk!" commented the tall man, vaguely, and passed his tongue on
his lips. "What about having a drink of some sort?"
"He struck me," hissed the second mate.
"No! Struck! You don't say?" The man in blue began to bustle about
sympathetically. "Can't possibly talk here. I want to know all about it.
Struck--eh? Let's get a fellow to carry your chest. I know a quiet place
where they have some bottled beer. . . ."
Mr. Jukes, who had been scanning the shore through a pair of glasses,
informed the chief engineer afterwards that "our late second mate hasn't
been long in finding a friend. A chap looking uncommonly like a bummer.
I saw them walk away together from the quay."
The hammering and banging of the needful repairs did not disturb
Captain MacWhirr. The steward found in the letter he wrote, in a tidy
chart-room, passages of such absorbing interest that twice he was
nearly caught in the act. But Mrs. MacWhirr, in the drawing-room of the
forty-pound house, stifled a yawn--perhaps out of self-respect--for she
was alone.
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