Reaching the eastern extremity of things after a walk of perhaps three-quarters of a mile along the beach, we presently had an improvised flag flying from a lopped tree, and after we had lighted a smoke smudge there was nothing more to do but to watch for the sail which I, for one, did not expect to see.
"Jolly rum old go, what?" said Jerry, casting himself full length upon the sand when our labors were ended. "Shouldn't mind it so much, don't y' know, if we didn't have the women along. Smoke?" and he handed me his tobacco bag.
"The women, and one or two others," I qualified, filling my pipe.
"Haw, yes: Hob Ingerson, for one. Actin' like a bally cad, Ingerson is. Needs to have some chappie give him a wallop or so, what?"
"Yes; and when it comes to the show-down, I rather hope I'll be the 'chappie'," I said.
"Not if I see him first," Jerry cut in, and this, indeed, was a new development.
"You're under weight, Jerry; you wouldn't make two bites for Ingerson if you should try to mix it with him."
"Eh, what?" exclaimed the transformed—or transforming—one, sitting up suddenly. "If he doesn't stop his dashed swearin' before the women, I'll take him on; believe me, I will, old dear."
"What makes you think you'd last out the first half of the first round with a big bully like Ingerson?" I asked, grinning at him.
"Number of little things, old top; this, for one," and he opened his shirt to show me something that looked like a ten-dollar gold piece suspended by a silken cord around his neck.