FOOTNOTE:
[1] Allow me to assure the “longshore boatmen” on Avalon Beach that my opinion of them is not that expressed hereafter by Mr. Harman.—Author.
V
THE BIG HAUL
I
Captain Michael Blood and Billy Harman, having received ten thousand dollars for services rendered to Henry Clay Armbruster, and having cashed the check, held a consultation as to what they should do with it.
Harman was for filling up their schooner, the Heart of Ireland, with trade and starting off for the islands in search of copra. Blood, tired of the sea, for a while demurred. He said he wanted to enjoy life a bit.
“And who’s to stop you?” replied the open-minded Harman. “A thousand dollars is all we want for a bust, and a week to do it in. I’ve took notice that the heart is mostly out of a bust by the end of a week, after that it’s a fair wind and followin’ sea for the jimjams with an empty hold when you fetches them. Let’s lay our plans and work cautious, for, when all’s said and done, it’s no great shakes to wake jailed with empty pockets, robbed of your boots by the bar drummers you’ve been fillin’ with booze.
“Booze ain’t no use,” continued Mr. Harman, finishing his glass—they were celebrating the occasion in a bar near the China docks. “Look at the chaps that sell it, and look at the chaps that swallow it—one lot covered with di’monds and the other lot with their toes stickin’ out of their boots. We’ve got to work cautious and keep takin’ soundings all the time, for riches is rocks, as I heard a chap once sayin’ in a temp’rance meetin’ on the Sand Lot. Twenty year ago it was, but the sayin’ stuck in my head—have another?”