“What?” ejaculated the young man sharply.
The other shrugged his shoulders.
“It depends on the story,” he said.
“I—I don't understand.” The young man frowned. “There's a chance for me to get aboard the mail boat?”
“It depends on the story,” said the other again.
“Moon-mad!” murmured the young man once more, after a moment's silence. “But it's cheap at the price, for it's not much of a story. Beginning where you left off in my biography, I ducked when the crash came in San Francisco, and having arrived in hell, as you so delicately put it, I started out to explore. Mr. Dante had it right—there's no use stopping in the suburbs. I lived a while in his last circle. It's too bad he never knew the 'Frisco water-front; it would have fired his imagination! I'm not sure, though, but Honolulu's got a little on 'Frisco, at that! Luck was out. I was flat on my back when I got a chance to work my way out to Honolulu. One place was as good as another by then.”
The young man lit a cigarette, and stared at the glowing tip reminiscently with his gray eyes.
“You said something about gambling,” he went on; “but you didn't say enough. It's a disease, a fever that sets your blood on fire, and makes your life kind of delirious, I guess—if you get it chronic. I guess I was born with it. I remember when I was a kid I—but I forgot, pardon me, the mail boat sails at daybreak.”
“Go as far as you like,” said the tall man, picking at his teeth with the quill toothpick.
The young man shook his head.