“‘One moment,’ says Logan, ‘what was that you were saying about pearls to that chap I heard you talking to. Talking about a pearl island, you were, and him sucking it in; don’t you know better than to give shows like that away in bars to promiscuous strangers?’
“‘I didn’t give him the location,’ hiccups the other chap, ‘and I don’t remember mentioning pearls in particular, but they’re there sure enough and gold-tipped shell; say, I’m thirsty, let’s get back for more drinks.’
“Now that chap hadn’t said a word about pearls, but he’d let out in his talk to the bummer that down in the Southern Pacific they’d struck an island not on the charts, and he had the location in his head and wasn’t going to forget it, and more talk like that, till Logan, sober and listening, made sure in his mind that the guy had struck phosphates or pearls, and played his cards according.
“‘One moment,’ says Logan. ‘You’ve landed fresh with that news in your head and you’re in ’Frisco, lettin’ it out in the first bar you drop into—ain’t you got more sense?’
“‘It’s not in my head,’ says the other, ‘it’s in my pocket.’
“‘What are you getting at?’ says Logan.
“‘It’s wrote down,’ says Appleby. ‘Latitude and longitude on my notebook, and the book’s in my pocket. Ain’t you got no understanding? Keeping me here talking till I’m dry as an old boot. Come along back to the bar.’
“Back they went, and Logan calls for two highballs, giving Johnstone the wink, and he takes Appleby into the back parlour and Johnstone served them the highballs with a cough drop in Appleby’s, and two minutes after that guy was blind as Pharaoh on his back on the old couch—doped.
III
“There was a stairs leading down from that parlour to a landing stage, and when they’d stripped the guy of his pocket-book and loose money, they gave him a row off to a whaler that was due out with the morning tide and got ten dollars for the carcase. Jack Bone was the boatman they always used, and it was Jack Bone told most of the story I’m telling you now.