When Captain Scraggs, after abandoning all hope of salving the bark Chesapeake, returned to the Maggie, the little craft reminded him of nothing so much as the ward for the incorrigible of an insane asylum. Due to Captain Scraggs's stupidity and the general inefficiency of the Maggie, the new navigating officer was of the opinion that he had been swindled out of his share of the salvage, while the new engineer, furious at having been engaged to baby such a ruin as the Maggie's boiler turned out to be, blamed Scraggs's parsimony for the loss of his share of the salvage. Therefore, both men aired with the utmost frankness their opinion of their employer; even Neils Halvorsen was peeved. Their depression and rage was nothing, however, compared with that of Captain Scraggs's. He had recklessly jettisoned approximately two hundred dollars' worth of vegetables; indeed the loss might go higher, for all he knew. Also, he had lost his skiff, and McGuffey and Gibney had practically blackmailed him out of forty dollars. Then, to cap the climax, he had been forced to abandon two thousand dollars to his enemies; and as the Maggie crept north at three knots an hour the knowledge that he must, even against his desires, install a new boiler, overwhelmed him to such an extent that he found it impossible to submit silently to the nagging of the navigating officer. One word borrowed another until diplomatic relations were severed and, in the language of the classic, they "mixed it." They were fairly well matched, and, to the credit of Captain Scraggs be it said, whenever he believed himself to have a fighting chance Scraggs would fight and fight well, under the Tom-cat rules of fisticuffs.

Following a bloody battle in the pilot house, he subdued the mate; following his victory he was still war mad, so he went to the engine-room hatch and abused the engineer. As a result of the day's events, both men quit when the Maggie was tied up at Jackson Street wharf and once more Captain Scraggs was helpless. In his extremity, he wished he hadn't been so hard on Mr. Gibney and McGuffey, for he realized he could never hope to get them back until their salvage money should be spent.

He had other tortures in addition. He could not afford to await the construction of a new boiler, for if he did some other skipper would cut in on the vegetable trade he had worked up, for vegetables, being perishable, could not lie on the dock at Halfmoon Bay longer than forty-eight hours. It behooved Scraggs, therefore, to place an order for the new boiler and, in the meantime, to get a gang down aboard the Maggie immediately and put in at least ten new tubes. By working night and day this job might be accomplished in forty-eight hours, and, fortunately, Sunday intervened. Scraggs shuddered at thought of the expense, for in addition to being parsimonious he had very little ready cash on hand and no credit.

When Mr. Gibney and McGuffey, wrapped in the calm thrall of their new-found financial independence, arrived at the Maggie's berth, they were inclined to levity. Indeed, they had come for the express purpose of spoofing their late employer; to crow over him and grind his poor soul into the dirt. Fortunately for Scraggs, he was not aboard, but sounds of activity coming from the engine room aroused McGuffey's curiosity to such an extent that he descended thereto at great risk to a new suit of clothes and discovered four men at work on the boiler. They had cut the rivets and removed the head and at sight of the ruin disclosed within, Mr. McGuffey was truly shocked—and awed. Why he hadn't been blown to Kingdom Come months before was a profound mystery.

He came up and joined Mr. Gibney on a pile of old hemp hawser coiled on the bulkhead. "Danged if I don't feel sorry for old Scraggsy, for all his meanness," he declared. "It's goin' to cost him five hundred dollars to patch up the old boiler an' keep the Maggie runnin' until he can ship a new boiler. The ol' fool don't know a thing about the job himself an' there's four men down there, without a foreman, soldierin' on him an' soakin' him a dollar an' a half an hour overtime. He's in so deep now he might as well jump into bankruptcy entirely an' put in a set o' piston rings, repack the pumps an' the stuffin-box, shim up the bearin's an' do a lot of little things the old Maggie's just hollerin' to have done."

"To err is human; to forgive divine," Mr. Gibney orated. "Come to think of it, Mac, we give the old man all that was comin' to him the other day—a little bit more, mebbe. He must be raw an' bleedin', an' it wouldn't be sporty to plague him some more."

"Durned if I don't feel like jumpin' into a suit of dungarees an' helpin' him out in that engine room, Gib."

"Troubles always comes in a flock, Bart. The Squarehead tells me his new navigatin' officer an' the new engineer has jumped their jobs. It's a dollar to a dime he asks us to come back if he sees us half way willin' to be friendly an' forget the past."

"Well," the philosophical McGuffey declared. "Seein' as how we've reformed, even with money in bank, we might just as well be workin' as loafin'. There's more money in it. An' if it wasn't that Scraggs is so ornery there's worse jobs than me an' you had on the old Maggie."

"I been wonderin' if we couldn't reform Scraggsy by heapin' coals of fire on his head, Bart."

"What d'ye mean? Heapin' coals o' fire on Scraggs'd sure keep an ash hoist busy."

"Oh, I dunno, Bart. The old man has his troubles. There's Mrs. Scraggs a-peckin' at him every time he goes home, an' the Maggie's a worry, not to mention the fact that there ain't much more'n a decent livin' for him in the green-pea trade. An' he ain't gittin' any younger, Bart. You got to bear that in mind."

"Yes, an' he's been disapp'inted in his ambitions," McGuffey agreed. "On top o' that, the Ocean Shore Railroad is buildin' down the coast an' as soon as the roadbed is completed over the San Pedro Mountains them farmers'll haul their produce to the railhead in motor trucks—an' there won't be no more business for the Maggie. Three months more'll see the Maggie laid up."

Mr. Gibney nodded. "It's just the sweet tenderness of Satan we'll be flush when Scraggsy's broke, Bart."

"Dang it, Gib, I sure feel sorry for the old man after takin' a look at that engine room. She's a holy fright."

"Well, we'll make up with him when he comes back, Bart, an' if he shows a contrite sperrit—well, who knows? We might do somethin' for him."

"He's got to have some financial help to get that engine turnin' over again, that's a cinch."

"So I been thinkin'. We might lend him a coupler hundred bones at ten per cent., secured by a mortgage on the Maggie, if he's up agin it hard. Havin' money in bank is one thing but locatin' an investment for it is another. I've kidded the old man a lot about the Maggie, but she's worth two thousand dollars if somebody'd spend a thousand on her inner works an' give her a dab o' paint an' some new fire hose an' one thing an' another."

"We'll wait here until Scraggs shows up an' see what he says. If he still says 'Good mornin', boys,' we'll answer him civil an' see what it leads to, Gib."

Mr. Gibney grunted his approval and Mr. McGuffey, bringing out a pocket knife, fell to manicuring his terrible finger nails and paring the callous patches off his palms. Mr. Gibney lighted a Sailor's Delight cigar and puffed meditatively, the while he watched a gasoline tug kicking the little schooner Tropic Bird into an adjacent berth. From the Tropic Bird came an odour of copra and pineapple and Mr. Gibney sighed; evidently that South Sea fragrance aroused in him old memories, for presently he spat overboard, watched his spittle float away on the tide, sighed again, and declared, apropos of nothing:

"When I was a young man, Mac, I was a damned fine young man. I had a bunch o' red whiskers an' a pair o' fists like two picnic hams. I was a wonder."

Silently Mr. McGuffey nodded an endorsement of his comrade's indicated horsepower and peculiar masculine beauty in the days of the latter's vanished youth. He continued to prune his hands.

"I was six feet two in my socks, when I wore any, which wasn't often," Mr. Gibney continued. "I've shrunk half an inch since them days. I weighed a hundred an' ninety-seven pounds in the buff an' my chest bulged like a goose-wing tops'l. In them days, I was an evil man to monkey with. I could have taken two like Scraggsy an' chewed 'em up, spittin' out their bones an' belt buckles. I sure was a wonder."

"You must ha' been with them red whiskers on your face," McGuffey agreed. He refrained from saying more, for instinct told him Mr. Gibney was about to grow reminiscent and spin a yarn, and B. McGuffey had a true seaman's reverence for a goodly tale, whether true, half-true, or wholly fanciful.

Mr. Gibney sniffed again the subtle tang of the South Seas drifting over from the Tropic Bird, and when a Kanaka, scantily clad, came on deck, threw a couple of fenders overside and retired to the forecastle singing one of those Hawaiian ballads that are so mournfully sweet and funereal, Mr. Gibney sighed again.

"Gawd!" he murmured. "I've sure made a hash o' my young life."

"What's bitin' you, Gib?" Mr. McGuffey's voice was molten with sympathy.

"I was just thinkin'," replied Mr. Gibney, "just thinkin', Mac. It's the pineapples as does it—the smell of the South Seas. Here I am, big enough and old enough and ugly enough to know better, and yet every time the City Of Papeete or the Tropic Bird or the Aorangi come into port and I see the Kanaka boys swabbin' down decks and get a snifter o' that fine smell of the Island trade, my innards wilt down like a mess o' cabbage an' I ain't myself no more until after the fifth drink."

"Sorter what th' feller calls vain regrets," suggested McGuffey.

"Vain regrets is the word," mourned Mr. Gibney. "It all comes back to me what I hove away when I was young an' foolish an' didn't know when I was well off. If there'd only been some good-hearted lad to advise me, I wouldn't be a-settin' here on a hemp hawser, a blasted beachcombin' bucko mate and out of a job. No, siree. I'd 'a' still been King Gibney, Mac, with power o' life an' death over two thousand odd blackbirds, an' I'd 'a' had a beautiful wife an' a dozen kids maybe, with pigs an' chickens an' copra an' shell an' a big bungalow an' money. That's what I chucked away when I was young an' nobody to advise me."

McGuffey made no comment on Mr. Gibney's outburst. There are moments in life when silence is the greatest sympathy one can offer, and intuitively McGuffey felt that he was face to face with a tragedy. When a shipmate's soul lay bare it was not for the McGuffey to inspect it too closely.

"Yes, McGuffey, I was a king once. Some people might try to make out as how I was only a chief, but you take it from me, Mac, I was a king. I was King Gibney, the first, of Aranuka, in the Gilberts, with the seat of government at Nonuti, which is a blackbird village right under Hakatuea. No matter which way you approach, you can't miss it. Hakatuea's a dead volcano, with ashes on top and just enough fire inside to cast a glow against the sky at night. There's a fair anchorage inside the reef, but it takes a good man to land through the surf at high tide in a whaleboat. I used to do it regular. Aranuka was a nice place, with plenty of fresh water, and some of the Island schooners, and once in a while a British gunboat would stop there. Gawd, McGuffey, but when I was king, they used to pay dear for their fresh water, except the gunboats, which of course came on and helped themselves without askin' no questions of me and parliament—which was both the same thing. I was in Aranuka first in '88 and again in '89, and I was a fool for leavin' it."

"What was you doin' in this here Aranuka?" asked Mr. McGuffey.

"In '88 I was blackbirdin' and in '89 I was—why, what d'ye expect a king does, anyhow? You don't suppose I worked, do you? Because I didn't. I ate and drank and slept and went in swimmin' with the court officers and did a little fishin' an' fightin'; and on moonlight nights I used to sprawl in the grass out on the edge of Hakatuea with my head in my queen's lap, rubberin' up at the Southern Cross and watchin' the rollers breakin' white over the reef. And everything'd be as still as death except for that eternal swishin' of the surf on the beach, babblin' of 'Peace! Peace! Peace!' an' maybe once in a while the royal voice lifted in one of them sad slumber songs of the South Seas—creepy and dirgelike and beautiful. My girl could sing circles around a sky lark. I taught her how to sing 'John Brown's Body Lies A-Smoulderin' in th' Grave,' though she didn't have no more notion o' what she was singin' than a ring-tailed monkey."

"How d'ye come to pick up with her?" inquired McGuffey politely.

"I didn't come to pick up with her," answered Mr. Gibney. "She took a fancy to them red whiskers o' mine, and picked up with me. She used to stick hibiscus flowers in them red curtains and stand off and admire me by the hour. You can imagine how gay I used to feel with flowers in my whiskers. That was one of the reasons why I left her finally.

"But them was the days! Me an' Bull McGinty was the two finest men north or south of the Line. We was worth six ordinary white men each, and twenty blacks, and we was respected. I first met Bull McGinty in Shanghai Nelson's boarding house, over in Oregon Street, not three blocks from where we're settin' now. I was twenty years old an' holdin' a second mate's ticket, for I'd been battin' around the world on clipper ships since I was fourteen, an' I'd bit my way to the front quicker than most. Bull was a big dark man, edgin' up onto the thirty mark. His great grandmother'd been a half-breed Batavian nigger, and his father was Irish. Bull himself was nothin', havin' been born at sea, a thousand miles from the nearest land. However, that ain't got nothin' to do with the story. Bull McGinty was skipper an' owner of the schooner Dashin' Wave, 258 tons net register, when I met him in Shanghai Nelson's place. Also he was broke, with the Dashin' Wave lyin' out in the stream off Mission Rock with a Honolulu Chinaman aboard as crew and watchman, while Bull hustled around shore tryin' to raise funds to outfit her for another trip to the Islands. He'd been beachcombin' ten days when I met him, and we took to each other right off.

"'Gib,' says Bull McGinty, 'I like you an' if I ever get money enough to provision the Dashin' Wave, pay the clearance fee, and put a thousand or two of trade aboard her, you must come mate with me and if you should have a little money by, enough to fix us up, I'll not only give you the mate's berth, but I'll put you in on half the lay.'

"'Done,' says I. 'I ain't got ten cents Mex to my name, but I'll outfit that vessel an' get her to sea inside two weeks, or my name ain't Adelbert P. Gibney.'

"To look at me now, McGuffey, you'd never think that in them days I was one of the smartest young bucks that ever boxed the compass. I was born with a great imagination, Mac. All my life my imagination's been my salvation. The ability to grab opportunity by the tail and twist it was my long suit, so after my talk with Bull McGinty I took a cruise along the docks, lookin' for an idea, until I come to Sheeny Joe's place. He used to keep a sailors' outfittin' joint at Howard and East streets, an' as I stood in his doorway, the Great Idea sails up to Sheeny Joe's an' lets go both anchors.

"What was this Idea? It was a waterfront reporter. It was three waterfront reporters, from three mornin' papers, an' all lookin' for news.

"'Joe,' says one little runt, all hair an' nose an' eyeglasses, 'there ain't enough news on the Front to-day to dust a hummin' bird's eyebrow. Give me a story, Joe. Somethin' new an' brimmin' with human interest. You must have somethin' up your sleeve, ain't yuh?'

"Sheeny Joe is sellin' a Panama paraqueet a pair o' six-bit dungarees for a dollar and a half, and he ain't got no time for reporters, but he looks up an' he sees me lingerin' in the doorway.

"'Gib,' says he, 'tell these reporter friends o' mine about the time you was wrecked in the Straits o' Magellan, an' the fight you had with them man-eatin' Patagonian cannibal savages.'

"Of course, I never was wrecked in no Straits o' Magellan, and as for man-eatin' Patagonian cannibal savages, I wouldn't know one if I met him in my grog. But seein' as how Sheeny Joe is busy an' me owin' him quite a little bill, I have to make good, so I tells them the most hair-raisin' story they ever listened to. I showed 'em an old scar on my left leg where I was vaccinated once, and told 'em that's where they shot me with a bow an' arrer. While I was tellin' my story Sheeny Joe has to run out in th' back yard an' roll over three times, he's that fascinated with what I'm tellin' his friends.

"Did them fellers eat it up? They did. The story comes out next day with trimmin's on th' front page, an' I'm a hero. Of course me an' Sheeny Joe knows I'm a liar, but what's a lie or two when you're helpin' out a shipmate? But anyhow, the whole business gives me the idee I'm lookin' for, an' I takes all three mornin' papers down to Bull McGinty an' lets him read 'em.

"'Now,' says I, when Bull is through readin', 'you have a sample of what publicity does for a man. I'm a hero. But that don't outfit the schooner Dashin' Wave. A man don't get no wages as a hero, Bull. Nevertheless,' says I, 'I have invented a story that will bring in money,' an' I tell the story to Bull. I don't leave him until I have that yarn drilled right inter his soul, an' then I call on Sheeny Joe an' tell him to pass the word to all of his reporter friends that if they want a good story to go down to Shanghai Nelson's boardin' house an' ask for Bull McGinty, skipper o' the schooner Dashin' Wave.

"Did they come? Mac, they came a-runnin'. The little nosy guy with the hair chartered a hack, he was in such a hurry. An' when they arrive, there sits Bull McGinty, smilin' an' affable, an' he spills his yarn as easy an' graceful an' slick as a mess o' eels. There's a island in the Society group, says Bull, which he discovers on his last trip, an' which ain't in none o' the British Admiralty notes. It's a regular island, with palms an' breadfruit an' tamarinds an' mangoes an' such, fine an' fertile, fifteen miles around the middle, an' plenty o' water. But th' surprisin' thing about this here island is that it ain't got nothin' livin' on it except the most beautiful women in all the South Seas. Accordin' to Bull, there ain't a male man nowhere on the horizon. Th' men has been fightin' among themselves until every man Jack has been killed off. Nothin' left but women with dreamy eyes an' long black hair an' pearly teeth. 'A man,' says Bull McGinty, 'is at a premium. Over fifteen different girls fell in love with him before he was ashore ten minutes, an' he had to pull back to the schooner to escape 'em. At that, says Bull, as much as a hundred an' twenty-seven of 'em, as near as he could count, came swimmin' after him and chased the schooner until she was hull down on the horizon, an' then they give up an' swam back to home, sobbin' like babies.

"Bull explains that he's so dead stuck on the place he's goin' back, just as soon as he can get together say a hundred smart young lads to come in with him on the lay, outfit his schooner, an' get to sea. Every man that wants to come in on th' deal must be not less than twenty-one years old and not more than thirty, an' must be examined by a doctor to see that he ain't afflicted with no contagious sickness, like consumption, which just raises fits with them natives, once it gets in amongst 'em. It's Bull's plan to start a ideal colony, governed on new an' different lines, an' every man must marry. He can have as many wives as he can support after each man has had his choice of the herd. The women are all beautiful, but in order that nobody will have a kick comin' the choice of wives is to be determined by drawin' lots. The island is to be fenced off an' each member o' the expedition is to have so much land.

"In order to do everything shipshape, Bull explains that he has formed a company to be known as the Brotherhood o' the South Seas, capitalized for two hundred shares at $500 a share. Bull, bein' owner o' th' schooner, an' possessin' the secret of the latitude an' longitude o' the island, an' bein' the movin' sperrit, so to speak, declares himself in on fifty-one per cent. o' the capital stock. Stocksellin' will commence just as soon as the printer can deliver the certificates.

"In the course of a somewhat checkered career, Mac, I've seen some suckers, an' I've told some lies, but this here was th' crownin' event of my life. We had applications for stock the next morning before me an' Bull was out o' bed. Four hundred and thirty-one would-be colonists comes flockin' around us, tryin' to hand us $500 each. Bull questions 'em all very closely, and outer the lot he selects the biggest damn fools in evidence. He was careful to select little skinny men whenever possible. They was a lot o' Willie boys an' young bloods lookin' for adventure, an' me an' Bull McGinty was just the lads to give it to 'em in bucketfuls. The little nosy reporter with the hair was fair crazy to come, but McGinty gets a jackleg doctor to examine him an' swear that he's sufferin' from spatulation o' the medulla oblongata, housemaid's knee, and the hives. We're mighty sorry, but it's agin the by-laws to bring him along. He felt heartbroken, so just before we up hook with the expedition, I had Bull give him an' the other newspaper boys a hundred dollars each. They was fine lads, all three, an' give us lots o' free advertisin'.

"Bull got greedy an' was for charterin' another schooner an' givin' all comers a run for their money, but I was wise enough to see the danger o' numbers, an' argued him out of it. I went mate on the Dashin' Wave, as per program, an' on a lovely summer day we towed out, with half San Francisco crowdin' the wharves an' wishin' us bon voyage, which is French for a profitable trip.

"We had a nice lot o' sick children on our hands before we was over th' Potato Patch. We didn't have a regular crew, exceptin' Bull McGinty an' me an' the Chinaman who shipped as cook. However, some of the brotherhood used to go yachting, an' they was all the crew we needed. We had a fair run to Honolulu, where we took on five thousand dollars in trade—beads, an' mouth organs, an' calico, an' juice harps, an' dollar watches, an' a lot of old army revolvers with the firin' pins filed off, and what not.

"From Honolulu, we clears for Pago Pago, where all hands went ashore an' enjoyed themselves visitin' the different points o' interest. From Pago Pago, we goes to Tahiti, and from Tahiti to Suva, and in general gives them adventurers as nice a little summer vacation as they could have wished for. Bull was for dumpin' the lot at Suva an' gettin' down to business—said he'd fooled away enough time on the gang—but I argued that we'd took their money—$50,000 of it, and they was entitled to some kind of a run, an' if we marooned them, like as not they'd send a gunboat after us, an' the fat'd be in the fire. Bull gave in to me finally, though he growled a lot about the profits bein' all et up by the brotherhood, appetites increasin' considerable at sea, an' all that.

"Just after we leave Suva we butts into a mild little typhoon, an' Bull scuds before it under bare poles, with just a wisp o' a jib to steady her. An' when the brotherhood was pea-green with seasickness I goes down into the bilges with a big auger an' scuttles the ship. In about two hours the brother at the wheel begins to complain that she's heavy an' draggin' like blazes, an' he fears maybe her seams has opened up under the strain.

"'I shouldn't wonder a bit,' says Bull McGinty, 'she's been jumpin' like a dolphin', and he goes below to investigate. Two minutes later he prances up on deck like a lunatic.

"'All hands to the pumps,' he yells; 'there's four feet o' water in the hold.' Aside he says to me, 'Gib, my boy, you're a jewel. Not a drop of water in that forward compartment where we piled the trade.'

"It was a terrible sad sight to see the seasick Brotherhood of the South Seas staggerin' below to the pumps. We had four pumps, an' feelin' that they might be able to pump her dry too soon, I had removed the suction leather from two of them. What a howl went up when Bull McGinty, roarin' like a sea lion, announces that all hands is doomed, because two of the pumps is nix comarous! Just about that time we ships a sea or two, and all hands lets go the pumps and starts to pray or weep or whatever they was minded to do under the circumstances. In the general excitement I slips below an' plugs up one hole, an' forces two men, at the point of a revolver that wasn't loaded, to pump ship. They just managed to hold the water level, while up on deck Bull is tearin' his hair an' cursin' somethin' frightful.

"Well, Mac, we kept that thing up for two days an' two nights, while the gale lasted, an' when we finally gets under the lee of an island, all hands are for throwin' up the sponge an' goin' back home. Somehow or other, the expedition don't look so enticin' as it did at first. We cleared away both whaleboats and landed the brotherhood on the island, where there was a wharf an' a big tradin' station. I forget what they call the place, but steamers touch there regular. Me an' Bull McGinty and the Chinaman stayed aboard, pumped out the ship, fixed the pumps, and plugged the holes in her bottom so nobody could find out. Then we figures out the price of a passage back to Frisco, second-class, for the whole bunch, an' me an' Bull goes ashore with a big sack of Chili dollars an' fixes it up with all hands to let go an' call it square for the ticket home. They wasn't feelin' as sore as much as you might imagine. None o' them had the brains or the spunk of a mouse, and besides we'd give them a mighty good time of it, all things considered. So, to make a long story short, we picks up a crew of half a dozen black boys, pulls the two whaleboats back to the ship, ups hook and sails away on our legitimate business. We divides the spoils between us, an' my share is eleven thousand cash an' a half interest in th' trade.

"We do a nice business in shell an' copra, an' such, an' in Papeete we sell our cargo to a Jew trader an' clean up fifteen hundred each additional on the voyage, after which Bull declares he's tired of hucksterin' around like any bloomin' peddler, an' we make up our minds to do a little blackbirdin'.

"Was you ever a blackbirder, McGuffey? No? Well, you didn't miss nothin'. It's dirty business. You drop in at a island, an' you invite the native chief aboard an' get him drunk, and make a contract with him for so many blackbirds to work for three years on some other island, or on the coffee or henequen plantations in Central America, and you promise them big money and lots of tobacco, and a free trip back when their time is up. What labour you can't get by dealin' with the chief, you shanghai 'em, and once in a while you can make a bully good deal, particularly in the New Hebrides and New Guinea, after a fight when they have a lot of prisoners on hand which they're goin' to eat until you come along an' buy 'em for a stick o' tobacco.

"It ain't no fun, blackbirdin', McGuffey. After you've got 'em aboard, they may take a notion to jump overboard and swim back, so you get 'em down below an' clap the hatches on 'em until you're out of sight o' land, an' the beggars howl an' there's hell to pay.

"Me an' Bull McGinty headed for the Gilberts that first trip, an' managed to pick up a fair consignment of labour. We touched in at Nonuti the very last place, which, as I says, is on the island o' Aranuka, right under the Hakatuea volcano. There was some strappin' big buck native niggers there that would fetch $300 a head Mex, an' so me an' Bull goes ashore to pow-wow with the chief. He was a fat old boy named Poui-Slam-Bang, or some such name, an' he received us as nice as you please. Me an' Bull rubbed noses with Poui-Slam-Bang an' all the head men, and they give a big feed in our honour. Roast pig an' roast duck an' stewed chicken an' all the tropical trimmin's we had, Mac, including a little barrel o' furniture polish that Bull brought ashore, labelled Three Star Hennessy on the outside an' Three Ply Deviltry inside.

"While we was at the feast, with everybody squattin' around on their hind legs, pokin' their mits into a big wooden bowl, Poui-Slam-Bang pipes up his only daughter, a lovely wench about seventeen years old with a name that nobody can pronounce. I call her Pinky, and of all the women I ever meets, black, white, brown, red, or yellow, this Pinky is the loveliest, and has 'em all hull down. She's wearin' a palm leaf petticoat and a string o' shark's teeth around her neck with an empty sardine box for a pendant. She has flowers in her hair, which is braided in pig-tails, different from the other girls. Her eyes—McGuffey, them eyes! Like a pair of fireflies floatin' in sorghum. And as she stands there working her toes in th' sand, she never takes her eyes off them fine red whiskers o' mine.

"Bull gives her a cigar, and it's plain that he's taken with her, but she never so much as looks at Bull. My whiskers has done the trick—so bimeby, when all hands is feeling jolly, including me an' McGinty, I sidles up to Pinky an' sorter gives her to understand that she wouldn't have to clap me in irons to fondle them red whiskers o' mine. She sticks a flower in them, Mac, s'help me, and then giggles foolish an' ducks into the bush.

"Well, we rigs up a deal with Poui-Slam-Bang and next afternoon stand out for the entrance with forty odd head of labour in excess of what we had when we arrived. We'd cleared the reef, and was comin' about around Hakatuea Head, when what d'ye suppose we sight? Nothin' more or less than Miss Pinky Poui-Slam-Bang swimmin' right across our bows. She was more than a mile out an' comin' like a shark, hand over hand. Before I could yell to the boy at the wheel to luff up, so we wouldn't run the girl down, we was right on top of her.

"'They'll have to revise the census of Aranuka,' says Bull McGinty. I do believe we hit that girl an' drove her under.'

"We was both rubberin' astern an' to starboard an' port, but not a sign o' the girl do we see. I got out my glasses an' searched around for full half an hour, an' by that time we was five miles out to sea, and it wasn't no use lookin' any more, an' besides I had work to attend to.

"We sailed along all the afternoon, over a sea as smooth as a dance-hall floor. Along about sunset I was up on the fo'castle head singin' 'Nancy Brown' when who should pop up onto the bowsprit but Pinky. She sat there a minute danglin' her legs an' smilin' an' s'help me, Mac, if it hadn't been daylight still, I'd a-swore she was a sperrit. I jumped two feet in the air an' came down with my mouth open. Pinky hops up on the bowsprit, and runs along to the fo'castle head, an' then I seen she was real. The little cuss! She'd swung herself up into the martingale, an' there she'd squatted all the afternoon until we was out o' sight o' land. Of course, she got a ducking every few minutes, but what's a duckin' to them kind o' people?

"I grabs hold o' Pinky, mighty glad to know we hadn't killed her, and brings her before Bull McGinty.

"'She's in love with some one of these black bucks aboard,' says Bull. 'That's why she's followed. Isn't she the likely lookin' wench, Gib? I do believe I'll——'

"'No, you won't do no such thing, Bull,' says I. 'The fact o' the matter is the girl's in love with me, an' if anybody's to have her it'll be Adelbert P. Gibney.'

"'I'm not so sure o' that, Gib,' says Bull McGinty. 'I'm skipper here.'

"'Well, I'm mate,' says I, 'with a half interest in this expedition.'

"'I'll fight you for her,' says Bull very pleasantly.

"'No,' says I, 'I'm opposed t' fightin' a shipmate under such circumstances, and moreover we're the only two white men aboard, an' if we fight I think I'll kill you, an' then I'd be lonesome. As a compromise, I'll tell you what we'll do. We'll give Pinky the freedom o' the ship, an' me an' you'll have a cribbage tournament from now until we drop anchor at Santa Maria del Pilar (that's a dog hole on the Guatemala coast). We'll play every chance we get, an' the lad that's ahead when we let go the anchor at Santa Maria del Pilar gets Pinky.'

"'Fair enough,' says Bull, 'an' here's my hand on it.'

"We had a smart passage o' fifteen days, and in that time me an' Bull McGinty plays just one hundred and eighteen games. We had to quit in the middle o' the last, with the score fifty-eight games to fifty-nine in Bull's favour, in order to let go the anchor at Santa Maria del Pilar. While we was up on deck, what do you suppose Pinky goes and does? She slips down to the cabin and fudges my peg three holes ahead. It seems that Bull, who talked the island lingo, has been braggin' to her an' tellin' her what we've been up to. The minute we have the anchor down, me an' Bull returns to the game. It's nip an' tuck to the finish an' I win by one point, Bull dyin' in the last hole, which makes the thing a draw.

"Says I to Bull McGinty: 'Bull, we can't both have her.'

"Says Bull to me: 'I hereby declare this tournament no contest, an' move that we sell the lady with the rest o' the herd, an' no hard feelin's between shipmates.'

"Nothin' could be fairer than that an' I tells Bull I'm willin'. So we sold Pinky for $200 Mex to Don Luiz Miguel y OreÑa, an' sailed away for another flock o' blackbirds.

"We had busy times for the next six months until we found ourselves back at Santa Maria del Pilar with another cargo of savages. But all that time I'd been feelin' a little sneaky on account o' sellin' Pinky, an' as soon as we dropped anchor I had the boys pull me ashore, an' I chartered a white mule an' shapes my course for the hacienda of this Don Luiz Miguel y OreÑa. I was minded to see how Pinky was gettin' on.

"It was comin' on dusk when I rides into OreÑa's place, an' all th' hands was just in from the fields. The labour shacks was built in a kind of square along with the warehouses, an' in the centre o' this square was a snubbin' post, with bull rings, an' hangin' to this snubbin' post, with her hands triced up to the bull rings, was Pinky Poui-Slam-Bang with a little Colorado claro man standing off swingin' a rope's end on poor little Pinky's bare back.

"I'm not what you'd call a patient man, McGuffey, an' bein' o' th' sea and not used to ridin' horses, not to speak o' white mules, I was sore in more ways than one. I luffs up alongside o' this dry land bo'sum an' punches once. Then I jumps off my white mule, takes the swab by the heels, an' chucks him over the warehouse into a cactus bush. Don OreÑa was there an' he makes objections to me gettin' fresh with his help so, I tucks Don OreÑa under my arm, lays him acrosst my knee, and gives him a taste o' th' rope's end. He hollers murder, but I bats him around until he can't let out another peep, after which I grabs a machete that's handy an' chases the entire male population into the jungle. When I gets back, Pinky is hanging to the bull rings, about dead. I cuts her down, swings her on th' mule, an' makes for the coast. We was aboard th' Dashin' Wave next mornin'.

"Bull was settin' up on top o' th' house eatin' an orange when me an' Pinky comes over th' rail.

"'Bull McGinty' says I, 'you're a sea captain. Come down off that house an' marry me to Pinky Poui-Slam-Bang.'

"'With pleasure,' says Bull, an' he done it, announcin' us man an' wife by all th' rules an' regulations o' th' Department o' Commerce an' Labour, th' Dashin' Wave being registered under th' American flag.

"Six weeks later I sets Pinky down on the beach at Nonuti, an' we both go up to her old man's shack for the parental blessin'. I expected Poui-Slam-Bang would slaughter th' roasted hog upon th' prodigal's return, but come t' find out, the old boy's been took in a scrap with one o' the hill tribes, an' speculation's rife as to his final disposition. Pinky allows that pa's been et up, an' she havin' no brothers is by all the rules o' the game queen o' Aranuka. Of course, me bein' her husband, I'm king. You can't get around my rights to the job nohow. For all that Pinky stands in with me, however, a big wild-eyed beggar makes up his mind that he'll make a better king than Adelbert P. Gibney, an' he comes at me with a four-foot war club, with two spikes drove crosswise through the business end o' it. As he swings, I soaks him between the eyes with a ripe breadfruit, with the result that his aim's spoiled an' he misses. So I took his club away an' hugged him until I broke three ribs, an' he was always good after that. I wanted t' be king, but I didn't believe in sheddin' no blood for the mere sake of office.

"Well, McGuffey, I was king of Aranuka for nearly six months. I was a popular king, too, an' there was never no belly-achin' at my decisions. I had a double-barrelled muzzle-loadin' shotgun, a present from Bull McGinty. Bull was all broke up at me desertin' the Dashin' Wave, but I promised to save all the Aranuka trade for him an' for nobody else, an' he stood off for Suva to get himself another mate.

"At first it was great business bein' king, an' I enjoyed it. I learned Pinky to speak a little English an' she learned me her lingo, an' we got along mighty fine. Pinky would lay awake nights, snoopin' around listenin' to what the rest o' the gang had to say about me, and twice she put me wise to uprisin's that threatened my throne. I used to get the ring leaders in my arms an' hug 'em, an' after one hug from Adelbert P. Gibney in them days——

"Well, as I was sayin', it was nice enough until the novelty wore off, an' there was nothin' to do that I hadn't done twenty times before. I thought some o' goin' to war with the wild niggers in the hills, an' avengin' my father-in-law's death, but I couldn't get my army more than three miles inland, so I had to give that up. Before three months had passed I wanted to abdicate the worst way. I wanted to tread a deck again, an' rove around with Bull McGinty. I wanted th' smell o' the open sea an' th' heave o' th' Dashin' Wave underfoot. I was tired o' breadfruit an' guavas an' cocoanuts an' all th' rest o' th' blasted grub that Pinky was feedin' me, an' most of all I was gettin' tired o' Pinky. She would put cocoanut oil in her hair. Yet (here Mr. Gibney's voice vibrated with emotion as he conjured up these memories of his lurid past) it never occurred to me, at the time, I was that young an' foolish, that she was doin' it for me. She was as beautiful as ever, an' Gawd knows nobody but a fool would get tired o' such a fine woman, every inch a queen, but I was just that foolish.

"I got so lonesome I wouldn't eat. I wished McGinty would show up an' relieve me of my kingship. An' one night sure enough he came. It was moonlight—you've been in the tropics, McGuffey, you know what real moonlight is—an' I was lyin' out on th' edge of Hakatuea overlookin' the beach. I'd spotted a sail at sunset an' somethin' told me it was the Dashin' Wave. Pinky was with me, rubbin' my head an' braidin' my whiskers an' cooin' over me like a baby, as happy as any woman could be.

"Along about ten o'clock, I should say, here comes the Dashin' Wave around the headland. I could see her luff up an' come about with her bow headed straight for the entrance between the reefs, an' th' water purlin' under her forefoot. Everything was as still as the grave, an' only the surf was swishin' up th' beach sobbin' 'Peace! Peace!' and there wasn't no peace for King Gibney. Pretty soon I heard the creak of the blocks an' the smash o' th' mast hoops as th' mains'l came flutterin' down—then th' sound o' the cable rushin' through the hawsepipes as her hook took bottom. In the moonlight I could see Bull McGinty standin' by the port mizzen shrouds with a megaphone up to his face, and his voice comes up to me like the bugle blast of Kingdom Come.

"'O, Gib! Are you there?'

"'Aye, aye, sir.'

"'Have ye et your full o' th' lotus?' says Bull.

"'Hard tack an' salt horse for King Gibney,' I yells back. 'I ain't no vegetarian no more, Bull. Do you need a smart mate?'

"I could hear Bull McGinty chucklin' to himself.

"'You young whelp,' says Bull. 'I knew you'd outgrow it. They all do, when they're as young as you. I'll send the whaleboat ashore. Kiss Pinky good-bye for me, too,' he adds.

"Two minutes later I heard the boat splash over the stern davits an' the black boys raisin' a song as they lay to their work. I turns to Pinky, takes her in my arms an' kisses her for the first time in three weeks, an' she knows that th' jig is up. She might 'a' slipped a dirk in me, but she wasn't that kind. Women is women, McGuffey, the world over. Pinky just kissed me half a hundred times an' cries a little, holdin' on to me all th' time, for naturally she don't like to see me go. Finally I have to make her break loose, an' I climbs down over the bluff an' wades out to my waist to meet the boat. I was aboard th' Dashin' Wave in two twos, shakin' hands with Bull McGinty, an' ten minutes later we had th' anchor up an' th' sails shook out, an' standin' off for the open sea. An' the last I ever saw of Mrs. Pinky Gibney was a shadowy figger in th' moonlight standin' out on th' edge o' Hakatuea Head. The last I hear of her was a sob."

Mr. Gibney's voice was a trifle husky as he concluded his tale. He opened and closed his clasp knife and was silent for several minutes. Presently he sighed.

"When a feller's young, he never stops to think o' th' hurt he does," continued the erstwhile king of Aranuka. "Sometimes I lay awake at nights an' wonder whatever became o' Pinky. I can see her yet, standin' in th' moonlight, as fine a figger o' a woman as ever lived. Savage or no savage, she was true an' beautiful, an' I was a mighty dirty dawg." Mr. Gibney wiped away a suspicious moisture in his eyes and blew his nose unnecessarily hard.

"You was," coincided McGuffey. "You was all o' that. What became o' Bull McGinty?"

"He married a sugar plantation in Maui. He'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.