“Shall a man give it where it is not wanted? But enough of this talk. I have shown you Cunningham’s pearls.”
“Perhaps.”
Night and wheeling stars. It was stuffy in the crew’s quarters. Half naked, the men lolled about, some in their bunks, some on the floor. The orders were that none should sleep on deck during the voyage to the Catwick.
“All because the old man brings a skirt on board, we have to sweat blood in the forepeak!” growled Flint. “We’ve got a right to a little sport.”
“Sure we have!”
The speaker was sitting on the edge of his bunk. 201 He was a fine specimen of young manhood, with a pleasant, rollicking Irish countenance. He looked as if he had been brought up clean and had carried his cleanliness into the world. The blue anchor and love birds on his formidable forearms proclaimed him a deep-sea man. It was he who had given Dennison the shirt and the ducks.
“Sure, we have a right to a little sport! But why call in the undertaker to help us out? You poor fish, all the way from San Francisco you’ve been grousing because shore leaves weren’t long enough for you to get prime soused in. What’s two months in our young lives?”
“I’ve always been free to do as I liked.”
“You look it! I’ll say so! The chief laid down the rules of this game, and we all took oath to follow those rules. The trouble with you is, you’ve been reading dime novels. Where do you think you are—raiding the Spanish Main? There’s every chance of our coming out top hole, as those lime-juicers say, with oodles of dough and a whole skin.”