I hauled out two ten-dollar bills mighty quick, and passed them to Beason. He held one in each hand, pinched between thumb and forefinger, and looked at them in turn, wrinkling his nose with as much disgust as though he were holding lizards by the tails.
“Soft money,” said he, “and the stink of the East still on it! I’ll bet you both of these poultices that you haven’t been in San Francisco twenty-four hours—and how do you happen to be such a pertickler friend of a China Basin steamboat cap’n, hey?”
A freshly arrived Easterner is always given away by his paper money.
“Who’s a friend?” inquired Captain Holstrom, the one eye I could see as staring and as baleful as the “eye” on the peacock feather.
“Look-a-here,” said I, bracing up to him savagely, for I knew that soft soap wouldn’t grease the ways, “I want to know what you mean by running away from me after my telegrams to you.”
I whirled on Beason, pushed him out of the room, and slammed the door in his face.
“You have been paid,” I yelled at him through the crack. “Now, keep your nose out of the rest of the thing, or I’ll pinch it off.”
“See here,” growled Captain Holstrom, vibrating the feather as menacingly as though it were a sled stake, “don’t you know a private party when you see one?”
I walked right up to him.
“My name is Sidney. I’m the diver you are expecting.”