"And you calls the play kerrect, Hollins. What with that old he-wolf a-howlin' in a mighty unmelodious way on the poop, an' Black Davis a-swarmin' all over me like a wild-cat, I shore reckons it's a heap thrillin'. Them two sports throws no end of sperit into their play."
"And thet ain't fosterin' no delusions; they're hot stuff, pard, an' they earns their reputations," said Bedrock Ben. "That 'ere Black Davis jumps me offen my mental reservation complete every time."
"When he gets a ship he ought to make a most successful master, if his training goes for anything," put in Curly. "I notice all the American deep-water skippers have the reputation of having been regular Western Ocean buckos in their time."
"That bloomin' roustabout'll never live to command a ship," grunted Red Bill from the opposite bunk. "He's too successful with his fists to live long. He'll get cut up one o' these days, like that other New Jersey tough."
"Yes, success isn't all jam," remarked Jack slowly. "It's got a remarkable habit of turning sour in your mouth, just as you are beginning to put on frills and throw out your chest."
"Them remyarks o' yours is shore wisdom, Jack," drawled Broncho in his musical Texan, as he blew a cloud of tobacco-smoke slowly through his nose. "What you-alls calls success don't always pan out so rich as you calculated it would. Often the kyards stacks up mighty contrary, an' when you're just about callin' for drinks round, blandly surmisin' in your sublime ignorance that you makes a winnin' an' is shore due to scoop the pot, that 'ere gent 'Providence,' who's sittin' some quiet an' unobstrusive whilst you raises the bet to the limit, just steps in an' calls your hand. Then it is that your full house goes down like an avalanche before his four of a kind, an' you, some sore an' chagrined, meanders off an' ponders on this vale of tears."
"You're some long-winded, Broncho," said old Ben Sluice, "but you're dead right. I've seen a hell's slew o' minin' pards go under just 'coss they'd struck it rich. They rakes in their dinero an' away they goes, playin' it high an' standin' the crowd, all the time a-consumin' o' nosepaint unlimited; an' the next thing you knows is they done jumped the track."
"H'I knew a real bang-up toff once," joined in the cockney. "'E wos a genelman, too, boiled shirt, shiny pants an' h'all, an' a dead smooth job 'e 'ad—just raked in the quids for doin' nuffin' but loaf 'round. You've all 'eard of the Scotch 'Ouse—leastways, h'any that's been to the little village h'I come from. Well, 'e was wot they calls 'shopwalker' there. H'I goes in there one day (h'I'd got a big payday comin', an' h'I thinks, thinks h'I, I'll be cute this time an' lay in a bang-up outfit). Well, h'in I goes an' h'up 'e comes as h'affable an' perlite as you please an' sez:
"'And what's yours, sir?'
"Well, h'I wos h'all took aback, gettin' sich a question from a puffect stranger. At last h'I stammers out: