“‘Why?’ asks Buck.
“‘Because,’ I says, ‘this cargo of stuff we’ve got aboard is a darned sight more perishable than the cargo of copra we’re to bring home; if we strike that island we’ll be there months and months diving and rotting oysters with this stuff lying aboard with the rats and the roaches and weevils working over it. Do you see? If he had the faintest idea we had a million to one chance he’d have bound us to call at Malakā on the out trip. No, he’s just took us for a pair of chump fools and is working us as such.’
“‘Well, if he has I’ll be even with him,’ says Buck.
“‘Another thing,’ I went on, ‘do you remember he said he’d give you the schooner if you got the better of that Chink? Those words jumped out of him that first morning, showing how little he thought of the business. He never repeated them; afraid of putting us off. Buck, I’m not saying anything against your relations, but this old chap gives me the shivers, him with a million of money in the Bank of California and you with nothing, and him using you. It’s not me I’m thinking of, but you, Buck.’
“‘Never mind me,’ says Buck.”
III
Dolbrush produced drinks and Brent, having refreshed himself and lit a new cigar, proceeded.
“Well, I was telling you—next morning we howked out and by noon that day we were clear of the bar, taking the sea with the Farallones on the starboard beam and all plain sail set. The Greyhound was no tortoise, and for all her dirt she was a dry ship, but that day when we came to tackle the first of the ship’s stores we’d have swapped her for a mud barge and penitentiary rations. Pat must have got the lot as a present, I should think, to take it away. I never did see such junk; it wasn’t what you might call bad, but it was faded, if you get me; not so much stinkin’ as without smell to it—or taste.
“‘All shipowners are bad, and Pat’s a shipowner,’ I says, ‘but there’s no doubt he’s given you a chance in life for the sake of his sister Mary—God rest her soul—the chance of getting ptomaine poisoning if you don’t die first of jaw disease breaking your teeth over this damn bread.’
“‘I’ll be even with him yet,’ says Buck.